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The sun was setting but the destination was nowhere near. The widening shadow of the hills in this unknown & unruly stretch was worrying me. To add to my woes, the motorbike’s fuel indicator had touched red; it was running on reserve. Expecting a petrol bunk in the forlorn place would have been hysterical on my part. The road forked ahead. One had smooth tarmac on it while the other was a roundabout with a withered surface, akin to the preceding stretches. By chance, a human was also crossing by. I stopped him to inquire which road should be taken. He informed me that the circular route was the old one which was in bad condition while the other route was the new one which was still under construction. The last phase of the new road was still to be completed. However, the new route would cut short the distance by a good 15 kilometer & save almost 30 minutes. Now the ball was in my court. I had to take my leap of faith. Lured by the silky road, reduced distance & the time savings, I inched forth on the new road. For the first time in the day, I got the opportunity to gear up. It literally felt like racing against the sun. With every sloping ray, I kept maxing the torque. Light was a precious resource in sparse supply. Just as the sun dipped leaving behind its’ last rays, I hit a blockade. This literally was a roadblock - a wall of mud stood in front of the road. The road was under construction with the last portion still to be laid. Little ahead, I could see the point where the old road met the new one, but I couldn’t reach it. As if to taunt me, the height of the wall was just seven to eight feet. In desperation, I even tried to lift the bike from its front wheel but to no avail. Against all odds, even if I would have decided to go back & take the old route, I did not have sufficient fuel. Downtrodden, I stood their blank, staring at the problem in front. I had become hopeless and couldn’t see any way out in the dark. Those moments of distress made me feel helpless. I had cracked. During these crushing moments, a rumbling metal pierced the atmosphere. Out of nowhere, I saw an enormous excavator advancing towards me. The mammoth halted nearby, dwarfing my existence. The operator tactfully pulled out few buckets of mud from the wall, dropped it near the edges and made a connecting way by thumping the mud with the massive metal bucket. I was speechless. Quite literally a road was constructed just for my rescue. I didn’t have words to express my gratitude and could only manage to say ‘thank you’. As we did not speak a common language, the modest operator explained through actions, that he had been noticing my plight and assumed it as his own responsibility to assuage me of this situation. I was belittled, not only by the machine, but also by the high morals of its operator. The ‘Journey’ had manifested that she was a true friend. She held me when I was down, came to my aid when I myself had lost all hopes and saw to it that I sail over every obstacle. She filled me with positivity and fortified that the darkest times mean that the dawn is near.