This is getting overwhelming.

Tears ran down from my cheeks as I clutched my hair in frustration. I closed my eyes in sigh and broke down into silent sobs.

What am I gonna do?
How am I gonna finish it?

Various thoughts were scattered all over my mind. After a good 5 mins mental breakdown, I looked up at myself in the mirror.

Messy Hair
Tired Eyes
Exhausted Brain
I was a mess.

In the morning, so many ideas were brainstorming in my head. I was getting so creative with the content but I didn't get the time to write at that particular moment. Later when I finally got free from household chores, ideas just... vanished.

I was blank and got stuck on such simple sentences I was smoothly thinking about in the morning.
This happened last time too.
So creative in the morning but brain dead at night. It doesn't matter if I wrote down the ideas popping up or not. Seems like the brain doesn't have a 'save for later' option.

I should get up more early.
I don't think I'm a night owl as I used to think before, 'working late at night'. My brain works in the morning better.

Lesson learnt.

But what am I gonna do now?
I don't have time left.
Just 24 hours.
That's all I have.
And I still have to cover 5 more articles. The word limit is bigger too this time.

Take a deep breath Hayat.
In order to think, you need to calm down first.
Yeah.
Let's not panic.

I counted till 50 with deep breaths while keeping the right hand on my heart and shifting all my focus to the heartbeat.
Listen to your heartbeat.
Feel the blood rushing in your veins.
Focus on your breath.
I didn't opened my eyes until my body was relaxed.

I have just one way out.
Take help from friends and inform about the given situation to Murat.
He must know.

Taking a sip of water, I texted down my friends if anyone was available and luckily one was there.
Lexi, my life saviour.
I instructed her the layout with topics and thankgod she easily grasped it up.

The next step was informing Murat. Or maybe I should just inform him tomorrow?
If Lexi did even 1-2 articles, I would easily be able to complete the goal by tomorrow night. But I should at least just ask him if I can get an extra day.

Better safe than sorry.

After leaving him a text, I laid down to sleep.
It was already past 1.
He must be asleep too.
The moment my head touched the pillow, it felt like someone gave me anesthesia.

I was knocked out.

.
.
.

'Here's the article.
I hope I did it right.
And I'm really sorry for not being able to help much.
Since morning I'm having high fever and cold.'
I saw a few texts from Lexi piled up in my WhatsApp as I opened it in the morning.

I examined the article and thank god! She has written the article so perfectly. Even though it was just one article, it felt like such a load was being removed from my shoulders. Hence I was motivated once again.

'It's alright.
Take rest.
You have already helped me so much by this, thankyou so much!'
I replied to her and opened Telegram to attend the next person in line.

'Oh.
It's okay, take help if you need, just take care of the format.
Yeah it's no problem if it takes another day.
Try not to cross it though.'
Murat replied to my previous texts easing my tension.

'Yess thankyouu!'
I replied instantly and got back to work with the new motivation I just got.

.
.
.

I clicked on the send button and rubbed my eyes while yawning.
Here goes the last article ~
Before I could go offline, green dot appeared on his profile and three dots started dancing below.

I'm calling in 2 mins.

My eyes went wide at the text I just got. It's past 11 at night. He doesn't call at this time.
Did I screwed up?
Will he scold me?
Coldness starts to crawl over my limbs while I waited for his call and my heartbeat picked up a pace as the phone started vibrating in my hand.

"Hello?"

"Yeah." He yawned.

"Kya hua?" (everything okay?)

"Sabse pehle ek cheez suno." (First of all, listen to one thing.)

"Bolo." (Say)

"Sabse pehle main batata hu google kaise kaam karta hai, theek hai? Uske baad bataunga kya gadbad hui hai."
(First let me explain how google engine works, okay? Then I will tell you where things went wrong.)

"...okay" I close my eyes.
I screwed up.
I was right.
I did something wrong.

His voice was stern yet calm.
Like is he pissed but too exhausted to let out the frustration.
Like he is trying to stay soft with me despite being irritated.

Which made me wonder how much I screwed up?
Did he catch the SEO paraphrasing tool I was using?
I wrote the content myself but for a better finishing touch I used that tool. I hope it's not about unnecessary plagiarism which pops up even in self-made sentences. Because THAT'S SO EXHAUSTING!

"You must have seen people posting their content on google right?"

"Yeah"

"So let's suppose there's a website for.....ummm.... food recipe. Okay?"

"Okay"

"There are thousands of websites across the web for this topic. So on what terms will google recommend you the best website? Who will get the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd position? Let me explain this to you first." Although his tone was softer than before but my nervousness didn't stoop down.

It won't.
Until I got to know what I did wrong.
And gosh!
He is taking the longer route for that.
Just jump on the main part please. This poor heart can't take it!

"So let's say someone searched up 'chicken biryani' on google search bar. That's called keyword."

"Hmm."

"Now google will scan its database and filter out the websites which contain this keyword. Let's suppose 3 websites got recommended on top. One is foodindia.com, second is foodhub, third is cookingbooth."

"Hmm."

"First thing, Google will check if the websites have 100% unique content or not. It must not be copied from some other website."

"....haa." (....yea) I couldn't breathe as he said this line.
I hope it's not this.
I hope it's not this.
I hope it's not this.

"Second thing, google checks how many time is the keyword being used in that content." He carried on with his neutral voice which made me release a breath that yeah it's not about that.

"Achha." (Oh.) Curiosity took over me as my cold limbs starts to get warm finally.

"Third thing, is the content actually written properly? Or just has loads of keywords stuffed?"

Okay. I understood what he was referring to.

"The question is, why did foodindia.com get the 1st position and why did cookingbooth get 3rd? It's because, the cookingbooth just kept on repeating 'My passion is cooking. I love cooking. Cooking this. Cooking that.' It has the keyword 'cooking' on repeat without any balance. Alright?

"Yeah."

"So now, Google doesn't find this content reader-friendly and sees it as spam. Whereas foodindia.com posted content having keywords in balance. First paragraph, one keyword. Second paragraph, one keyword. You getting my point?"

"Haan." (Yes) I finally got my voice back.

"This is called as 'keyword stuffing'. It means just stuffing keywords one after the other."

"Achha."

"You were quite focused in writing that's why I didnt interrupt you in between and decided to let you complete first. But now as everything is done, one last thing which you need to do is, editing. Just a 10 minutes work."

"Alright."

"First focus on the subtitle. Keep it in phrases. Especially in those subtitles where you have just used keywords. Don't leave the keyword alone, add some words before or after it."

"Oh the subtopics." I point out to make sure we are on same page. My brain was going crazy because by subtitles I was getting the mental image of movie subtitles.

"Yeah subtopics. Subheadings." He clarified. "The next thing is.." his voice drifts off as if he was looking through something (maybe his laptop), then continued, "Look every thing is fine. But this last mistake...," he sighs. "Well I can't even scold you because you are a fresher. If someone who had been doing this work for years made this mistake, I would have held him accountable."

He was irritated.
Yes.

"Although you have written this for the first time.... no second time, but it's written perfectly," his voice gets softer at the end as if he is afraid I might cry, "Alright?"

I kept quiet as my throat became tight.

"So, the last mistake is, you did the keyword stuffing. In the article that you have sent just now, there are two paragraphs with no keyword at all and then comes a para with 4-5 keywords. Am I right?

"Yeah."

"Now all you have to do is, rearrange the keywords properly."

My deadline was tonight.
Does this mean.......
I closed my eyes.
Gosh I just want to sleep.
I dont wanna do them right now.

As if hearing my thoughts, he reassured, "Kal tak ka time lelo koi baat nahi. Araam se karo dhyan se." (You can submit it tomorrow. No need to rush.)

Phew~

"So, here's the procedure you need to keep in mind. If the paragraph has 4 lines, use 1 keyword. If it has 8 lines then use 2. And the method? Add one in the starting, and one at the end of the paragraph. Got it?" He instructed.

"Hmm." I tried to contemplate whatever he said.

"I can't give more directions nor edit myself because you are better than me in the grammar field. So you know the best way to handle it. Just scan the article and rearrange the keywords."

"Hmm okay." 

"Will it be done?" After all the instructions in serious voice he stoops down to the gentle level once again.

"Yeah let me see what I can do." I murmured.

"Ab suno meri baat," (now listen to me) he murmured back which broke the last straw I was holding on to and my vision became blurry. 

I quickly wipe up my eyes, getting control over myself.
Why are you crying Hayat?
He didn't even scold you!

"I will send you the articles to edit one by one." 

"More articles?" He confused me.
Why does he need to do that?
I already have em.
Or will he send more apart from mine?
Gosh! My brain is not working at all.

"No no. Just the ones you have written."

"The 12 articles," I muttered.

"Jii jii. (Yes yes) So let's take a look at the article you submitted just now." He paused.

No please not now.
My brain is dead.
And I don't wanna make another mistake by forgetting something.

"Hmm the first paragraph seems around 250 words." He continued, oblivious to my thoughts.

Wow he can guess the word limit just by looking at the paragraph?

"The number of keywords are.... 1 in the starting...2nd in the middle...and.... Yeah just 2 keywords. Perfect. Moving on to the next para... Yeah this one needs correction, 5 keywords here in each line." The article was freshly imprinted in my mind so I knew what he was referring to. "Third one has no keyword at all." He carried on with the remarks as I tried to control my yawn while sliding down through the cold wall behind my back.

Focus Hayat. 

"Now listen, in fourth paragraph, you have added two keywords together with 'and' in between." 

"Because they were...... so weird," I reasoned out. "Like..... They doesn't align with the grammar." My brain was having a hard time even in commanding the tongue to speak up.

"Yes, they seem weird I agree. But we can't use 2 keywords together na? The thing is, these keywords will be highlighted. Written in bold."

"Oh."

"I sent you one screenshot yesterday I think. Or maybe in the morning?"

"Yesterday maybe...." I mumbled.

"Yeah, it was today morning. Now look at this screenshot and notice the bold phrases." He was definitely using telegram on his laptop.

"I....dont have earphones attached."

"It's okay. Check it on phone. I'm here waiting."

"Okay." I open the telegram and check the picture he had sent me. Various bold words were highlighted in the middle of the paragraph. I put my phone back on the ear. "Yeah I saw."

"Yeah. It's taken from the article you sent yesterday. Did you notice the bold letters?"

"Yeah"

"Those bold phrases are keywords. That's how the article will look like after getting published. All the 5 bold phrases stuffed together. Won't it look weird?"

"Hmm."

He spoke after a minute of silence, "So, everything clear? Any doubt?"

"Yeah all clear." I put my forehead on the arm resting on the knees.

"Hmm. Aur apni ye thakaan utaar lo." (Hmm. Now give plenty of rest to yourself.) He murmurs, switching back to his softer version.

I swear he transforms into a different person while talking about work.

"Hmm." My eyes start to get watery once again.
Is it that obvious?
Or is he that observant?
Or am I just overwhelmed?

"Because you'll be assigned to more tasks tomorrow."

"More work?" I whispered in disbelief.

"Ji. Zyada thakan ho gayi kya?" (Yep. Are you too exhausted?)

"Umm...my brain is just....freezed".
My grammar broke too.
Great.

"Well, no problem. That's why I'm telling you. The last one you gave?"

"Hmm."

"Edit as much as possible. Leave the rest for tomorrow. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Get rest."

"Hmm. You too." I whispered with my eyes closed, still resting on my arm.

Let's get back to work Hayat before your brain officially shuts down.

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.
.

********