The rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor was the only conversation in the room.
I sat at my mentor's bedside, watching his chest rise and fall beneath the harsh green hospital sheets—each breath more labored than the last. The antiseptic air clung to my clothes, mingling with the unmistakable scent of impending farewell. His once piercing eyes, now clouded with mortality, found mine across the void that separated the living from those preparing to depart. His hand—the same hand that had once confidently sketched formulas on whiteboards and guided mine through complex equations—now trembled in my grasp, cool and light as autumn leaves.
Just days earlier, I had been sitting in the golden warmth of our usual corner at Café Lumière with Abdulla, my chuckaboo and voice of reason for the past decade.
The café hummed with life—espresso machines hissing, patrons murmuring over steaming cups, spoons tinkling against ceramic. But Abdulla's voice sliced through it all, sharp as obsidian.
“You outta your mind?” he asked, leaning forward until I could see the flecks of amber in his dark eyes.
His coffee sat untouched, a perfect mirror reflecting the overhead lights.
“Seriously, what's gotten into you?”
I blinked, a deer caught in the high beams of his scrutiny.
“Whaddya mean?”
He smirked—that knowing half-smile that always preceded his most unfiltered truths.
“You were always at the zenith of success—the coding genius, the tech prodigy everyone was watching.”
His fingers drummed against the wooden table, each tap an accusation.
“And now, you've left it all behind, chasing some... vague idea of greatness. You've turned your back on what made you shine.”
His words landed like stones in still water, ripples of doubt spreading through me. Abdulla had always been my most honest critic, the one who never sugarcoated reality when I needed to hear it raw. Yet for all his insight, he couldn't see inside my mind, couldn't feel the gravitational pull that had redirected my path.
I wrapped my hands around my cooling mug, drawing comfort from its lingering warmth.
“It's not about turning my back,” I murmured, watching the last wisps of steam rise and vanish.
“It's about carrying something forward.”
His forehead creased, skepticism etched in every line as he leaned back, creating a physical chasm between us that mirrored our ideological one. He said nothing more, just studied me with the intensity of someone trying to decode an encrypted message.
The truth was, Abdulla's words echoed my own internal doubts—the midnight whispers that questioned if I had abandoned my gifts, betrayed my potential. Yet even as uncertainty gnawed at me, I couldn't ignore the magnetic pull toward something greater, something that transcended code and algorithms.
Something my mentor, Mr. Ithban Nasir, had planted in me years ago that had finally broken through the soil of my consciousness.
And now, in the sterile quiet of room 407, watching the shallow rise and fall of Mr. Nasir's chest, I remembered why I had chosen this divergent path.
“Remember the first time I figured stuff out?” I whispered, my voice catching on the edges of emotion.
The words hung in the air between us, fragile as soap bubbles. A ghost of a smile touched his lips—so faint it might have been my imagination—and it pressed against my chest like a physical weight. His eyelids fluttered closed, and panic surged through me like electricity.
The heart monitor stuttered—skip, skip, beep—before finding its rhythm again, as if negotiating for just a few moments more.
I tightened my grip on his hand, feeling the warmth ebbing away like tide receding from shore—the final emanation of the man who had sculptured the rough clay of my potential into something meaningful.
As I sat there, his labored breaths marking time in the quiet room, the present dissolved around me. I was no longer a thirty-two-year-old man with credentials and achievements, but a seventeen-year-old boy with untamed curiosity and unpolished potential, standing at the back of a crowded college auditorium.
It was fifteen years ago, during a faculty symposium on mentorship potential. The room buzzed with academic energy, but my eyes were fixed on one figure—Mr. Ithban Nasir, standing tall amidst his colleagues, his voice resonating with quiet authority as he spoke about the sacred responsibility of nurturing young minds.
“Potential,” he was saying, hands gesturing as if molding invisible clay,
“is not something we discover in our students. It's something we create the conditions for. Like oxygen for a flame.”
After the symposium dispersed, I approached him with my heart hammering against my ribs. I had always been drawn to science like a compass needle to north, yet my knowledge was a jigsaw puzzle with most pieces missing. He noticed me hovering at the edge of the emptying room and beckoned me closer with a warm smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes.
“Shakir,” he began, my name sounding important in his resonant voice,
“You like science, don't you? I've seen that spark when we discuss physics in class.”
I nodded so vigorously my glasses slipped down my nose.
“Spill it,” he challenged, eyes twinkling with mischief and warmth,
“Whaddya know about Stephen Hawking?”
The question caught me off guard, damming my enthusiasm. My mouth opened, closed, opened again.
“I... I ain't got a clue who that is,” I admitted, shame heating my cheeks.
But instead of disappointment, his face lit up with the joy of a teacher presented with a blank canvas.
“Ah, my boy,” he chuckled, the sound warming the space between us,
“There's a lot you gotta learn. And that's wonderful! Go ahead, look 'em up. Start with Wikipedia, then come back and tell me what you find.”
Eager to redeem myself, I nodded and practically sprinted away, my sneakers squeaking against the polished floor.
But my confidence faltered as I pushed through the library's heavy doors. I scanned the vast room with rising panic—rows of encyclopedias, reference guides, journals, but where was Wikipedia?
After circling the main floor twice, I approached the librarian's desk, my voice small but determined.
“Sir, where is the Wikipedia section?”
The middle-aged man looked up from his computer, blinking owlishly behind thick glasses.
“Wikipedia? That's not in the library, son.”
But I was undeterred.
“Maybe in the science aisle? Or biography? It has to be here somewhere.”
His confusion only deepened, but I was on a mission. For the next two hours, I combed every corner of the library, pulling out encyclopedias, science journals, and biographies, scribbling notes about any Stephen Hawking reference I could find. Most of what I read sailed over my head—black holes, radiation, theoretical physics—but I copied it dutifully, determined not to return empty-handed.
Frustrated but resolute, I finally returned to Mr. Nasir's office, clutching my chaotic notes like a lifeline.
“Sir,” I began breathlessly, thrusting my papers forward,
“I tried my best, but I didn't get it.”
He looked up from his desk, brow furrowed.
“Didn't get what, Shakir?”
“Wikipedia,” I mumbled, suddenly uncertain. “I looked everywhere.”
There was a moment of perfect silence, like the pause before thunder, and then he burst into laughter—a booming, joyous sound that bounced off the walls and filled the room to bursting. I stood frozen as nearby students peered in, curious about the commotion.
Some began to laugh along, a ripple effect of mirth spreading down the hallway.
“Wikipedia isn't in the library!” he finally managed between gasps.
“It's a website, Shakir—a resource on the internet!”
The students gathering at the doorway, now understanding the mix-up, couldn't contain their amusement.
“He thought it was a book!” someone stage-whispered.
“Imagine looking for Wikipedia in the library!” another added, setting off fresh peals of laughter.
Heat blazed across my face like wildfire. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than for the floor to crack open and swallow me whole.
But Mr. Nasir, still chuckling but seeing my mortification, rose from his desk and placed a firm hand on my shoulder.
“Shakir,” he said, his voice cutting through the laughter like a lighthouse beam through fog,
“This is hilarious, yes, but it's also magnificent. You tried. That effort—that passion to learn? That's what matters. Not knowing something isn't shameful. Not being willing to find out—that's the only real failure.”
The laughter around us gradually subsided, replaced by something else—respect, perhaps, for the earnestness of my attempt if not for its execution.
That day, standing amidst the diminishing echoes of laughter, something crystallized within me. It wasn't anger or shame that took root, but a fierce determination that would become my north star.
I silently vowed that I would never again face a moment where I didn't understand, where I wasn't prepared.
That resolution became my turning point, the catalyst that drove me to master not just information but the art of acquiring it. His belief in me, coupled with his humor and guidance, ignited a fire that would consume every obstacle in my path.
That decision led me to where I am today, a tech innovator whose achievements had surpassed even my own wildest dreams. All because of the man who had laughed at my innocent confusion but never once doubted the heights I could reach.
Back in the hospital room, I felt a tear trace a warm path down my cheek, then another. His breathing had grown shallower, the spaces between breaths stretching like elastic.
“Sir,” I whispered, leaning closer,
“I've come so far because of you. Everything I've built, everyone I've helped—it all started with that day in the library.”
He opened his eyes one last time, clarity briefly returning to their depths like sunlight breaking through clouds. A faint smile touched his lips, and his fingers twitched against mine in what might have been a squeeze.
“You've made me proud, Shakir,” he murmured, each word a labor of love.
“Now carry it forward. Find your Shakir.”
As his hand fell limp in mine and the monitor's steady beep collapsed into that terrible, flat tone, I realized that his lessons would live on—not just in me but in every life I touched, every mind I helped ignite, every potential I nurtured to fruition.
Mr. Ithban Nasir was gone, but his legacy was immortal—etched into the hearts and minds of those he had guided toward their own light.
I stood slowly, legs numb from hours of sitting, and moved to the window.
The morning sun was breaking through storm clouds, its golden light spilling into the room and across his still form. It felt as though he was still there somehow, his presence lingering in the particles of light that danced in the air.
And in that moment of grief and clarity, I made a vow: to honor his memory by becoming a mentor who could illuminate paths and change lives, just as he had changed mine.
As I turned back toward the bed, I whispered,
“I will, sir. I promise.”
And somewhere beyond the veil that separates us from those we've lost, I liked to think he heard me.
