If I’d not taken five minutes, Billy, my eleven-year-old son, would now be dead.
It could have been so different if I hadn’t decided to do what I’d been promising myself to do for the last five years. Just five minutes, that’s all it took.
The world of technology had taken over my life. Like most of the rest of humanity, my head was forever buried in a screen. Morning, noon and night, I couldn’t resist it. If I wasn’t checking my social media accounts or email every five-minutes, I felt like I was missing out. Missing out on a new world! A new world that just five minutes could change.
It was the distant sound of crying coming from Billy’s bedroom that forced me to bring my head up from the screen of my iPad. Why was he awake and sobbing at this ungodly hour?
When the familiar sound of a ‘ping’ came from my iPad, I could feel myself being pulled into the online world again. I’d made the mistake of looking down and seeing the fixed notification on the screen telling me that Rachel, my online mistress, was available.
Aroused by the thought of Rachel, my finger hovered over the Skype button, where I could instantly connect with her, while my ears picked up the sobbing coming from Billy’s room. What should I do? Check-in on Billy, or find out if Rachel’s was wearing that sexy nurses’ uniform and fishnet stockings?
Thank goodness I chose to take those five minutes wisely. You see, if I hadn’t used them to check-in on Billy, I’d never have found out that he’d been contemplating suicide. Not only had the death of his mother, five-years earlier, taken him to the edge of a cliff, but my new online world and the neglect it had forced upon him had also taken him there.
The self-harm images he’d been looking at on his Instagram account were worlds apart from the images I’d been watching when Rachel was online. Ready to blackmail me, she’d had the camera ready to record me that night.
Not only had those five minutes saved the life of my Son, but they’d saved mine, too.
***
This is my entry for the 2019 Bloggers Bash Blog post competition, which has the theme of ‘Five’. Click here for full details.
Unfortunately, as a member of the Bloggers Bash committee, I can’t enter the competition.
I hope my entry has inspired you to have a go. Three winners will each receive Amazon gift cards.
You gotta be in it to win it.
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Excellent story Hugh!
Thank you, Sam. Glad you enjoyed my entry for the competition (even though it can’t be entered).
A precious five minutes, Hugh. Good thing for both of you that you checked on Billy.
Indeed, Norah. Sometimes, technology has a habit of making us blind as to what exactly is going on around us. A lesson for many of us I think.
I agree. It’s an important message hidden in your story.
This was a great read Hugh! It’s so good of you to get into the spirit even though you can’t enter the competition!
Thanks, Debbie. I just had to give the competition a go. I hope it inspires others to have a go.
What a shame you can’t enter. This is amazing, I never expected the ending. 😊
I hope it inspires others to have a go at the competition, Dorinda. I’m glad you never saw the ending coming. Thanks so much for reading it.
My pleasure. 😊
Goosebumps when I read your first sentence all the way to your last sentence. Captivating, great story, Hugh.
Thank you, Erica. ‘Captivating’ is one of the best words a reader can say to me after reading one of my stories.
Wow….that was powerful indeed. Technology deduces us and zones us out to whats around us sometimes. Thank God for life.
Life offers us so much to write about, George. And we often need technology to write about it, yet that can lead us onto paths full of danger.