Chapter 14: A Life Without Regrets

Mr. Stein slowly wobbles inside of his house, holding the door open for Celia and Tabby before walking over to a cabinet and pulling out an old music box with a ballerina at the top.

“This is the thing I need you to fix,” he said, twisting the lever on the side as music began to play, “the ballerina at the top is supposed to start spinning, but as you can see it doesn’t seem to work properly anymore.”

Celia gently took the music box from his hand and examined its wooden properties closely.

“Please do be gentle with it,” he said, “this music box may not seem like much but it means a lot to me and my wife. She may not be here anymore and I may not have much time left myself, but I’d like to see this thing repaired before I go.”

Celia nodded and continued examining the box, specifically the ballerina at the top to see if anything might’ve gone wrong with the gears.

“I can definitely tell this means a lot to you both,” she said, “this music box is made out of wood, and yet not a single scratch is on it. How long have you had this for?”

“Hmm… a little over 50 years now,” he said, “my wife was a ballerina, and she had won the prize during one of her many performances back then. Unfortunately she developed a bad injury on her heel… Achilles Tendinitis was what the doctors said… the news came as a tragedy to the both of us, so much so I still remember what the cursed thing was called.”

Celia’s expression saddened upon hearing the man’s story.

“She couldn’t perform well anymore, but she could still dance to a certain degree. For a while, that’s all that mattered to us; we loved dancing with each other. We danced together a lot after that, perhaps in denial of her fate. We danced and danced, every single day — we danced so much that I thought we would never get tired of it,” he continued, “unfortunately, over time I slowly began to realize that wouldn’t be the case. Maybe the pain was too much, or maybe she got burnt out, but we soon slowly became too tired to do what we loved doing the most, even when our bodies were more than capable enough of still doing it.”

Mr. Stein pointed over to the music box in her hands.

“I said that that box meant a lot to the both of us, but it’s much more meaningful to me than it was to her,” he said, “seeing the ballerina dance and spin around on the music box reminds me a lot of how she used to dance so freely and happily. It was as if her passion for dancing never burned out. I’m not too fond of the song that plays, but after her passing, I still find myself winding it up just to see the ballerina dance, but — well, I’m just an old man rambling about the past, I’m sure you don’t care much about the story behind the music box.”

“Oh no, I don’t mind it actually,” Celia assured him, placing the music box on the table, “I like hearing the stories behind the things I’m repairing. It seems to me like this music box means a lot to you Mr. Stein. Fortunately it’s just a simple problem with the gears, so I’ll have it fixed in no time; since this music box’s gears are made out of wood, I just need to take it out and carve it back into its right shape.”

“Ah that’s good to hear then,” he said with a smile as Celia ordered Tabby to open the toolbox she attached to him.

Since she was focusing on completing repair commissions now, there was no need to have the map of the landfills on him, so she replaced it with a handy tool box filled with common tools for repair.

As Mr. Stein watches Celia extract the small wooden gear out from the box, he suddenly asks her, “just curious, what kind of engineer do you want to become?”

“Oh, just a general robotics engineer,” she lied without looking up at him, pulling out a small carving knife, “I like building robots and repairing them and stuff, so I figured I would become one.”

“Hmm…” he murmured, “I think you’ll be a perfect fit for it due to your skills and ingenuity, but tell me, is that really  what you want to become?”

Celia paused, looking up from the wooden gear in her hands.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“It’s just that quite frankly, I don’t believe you,” he replied, “my wife had the same expression and tone of voice when she told me she wanted to continue dancing until we’re old. At the time, I believed her and thought that everything was okay, but as you know, I later learned that that wasn’t really the case. So, I want you to be honest with me child — if you don’t mind of course — but what do you really want to do?”

Well, I want to build a rocket, but that’s not something I can just go around saying, she thought to herself.

Instead, she decided to continue lying about it. After all, there was no point in telling this random old man anything.

“I understand where you’re coming from Mr. Stein, but I’m sure that this is what I enjoy doing,” she replied, continuing to carefully carve into the gear.

He gently smiles.

“Well, if you say so,” he said, “but I do want to give you some advice, regardless of what you’re actually pursuing. A lot of people out there will tell you you’re running out of time, and that you have to start pursuing your dreams while you’re still young. They’ll pressure you into following your dreams, telling you that you always must be working towards them otherwise you’ll regret it when you’re older.”

Just like Alto? Celia wondered as her movements gradually started to slow down as she began to listen to him more intently.

“But the truth of the matter is that you’ll also regret it if pursuing your dreams was all you ever did,” Mr. Stein continued, “it’s okay to relax and take a little break here and there so you don’t get burnt out while pursuing your dreams. You may enjoy repairing things and building robots, but imagine if that’s all you ever did for the rest of your life. You’ll end up detesting it and hating it, and you may never even realize why. You’ll be wondering why you hated doing something you loved so much.”

Celia slowly dragged the knife across the small wooden gear in her hands, shaving a small part of it off before she solemnly looked at the table where the music box was.

Is that what happened to me after building robots every day?  She wondered, will the same thing eventually happen if I try too hard to build a rocket?

“While I do agree on the notion to follow your dreams, I disagree that you’ll run out of time if you don’t actively follow them. Life is indeed short, but you shouldn’t discount how long it can actually be,” he said, “I’m sure my wife and I thought that we had to continue dancing every day because one day the condition in her foot would worsen to the point where we couldn’t anymore. Unfortunately for us, she lost her passion before her ability. Had we taken our time to cherish the time we had left, we might’ve enjoyed our dream of dancing a little longer. I’m sure that other people will disagree with me and tell you differently, after all, old people like me only give you lessons from the things we personally regret. In the end, you should choose to follow what you think is best for you.”

Celia finished carving off the last tiny piece of wood, and examined the gear before carefully inserting it back into the music box with a pair of small tweezers.

“Thank you Mr. Stein,” she said, closing the box and handing it over to him, “I’ll be sure to take your words into account.”

Mr. Stein smiled as he took the music box from her hand, turning the little crank on its side and watching the little ballerina start to dance at the top again.

“And thank you too… uh… Shilah?” he murmured squinting his eyes, trying to recall what her name was from the app.

“Celia,” she reminded him, “and no problem. I just did what I was paid to do.”

“Haha sorry about that, my memory is slowly becoming worse with my age,” he apologized, “well then, you have a good rest of your day. Thank you for listening to my story, most youngsters nowadays are usually very impatient.”

The two of them wave goodbye as Celia exits the house with Tabby and pulls out her phone.

After accepting the next commission on the ProtoTask app, she wonders to herself, how many more things do I have to take into account to live a life without regrets?