Seconds to Solve
by Ridham Shroff
One hot sunny Saturday, I got out of the car, finishing my Rubik's cube puzzle in roughly 42 seconds.
"Dang it!" I said. "I almost got it: 42 seconds."
"Well, you're getting faster," replied my dad.
"Can we get lunch?" I asked, my stomach growling.
"That's where we are heading," he answered.
The only place within walking distance was a little bakery, so that's where we settled on going. I was trying to get my cubing average below 40 seconds, my record was like 30, but that was just once. My average was around 45 seconds, so that was a significant leap. The walk was long, so I figured I could get 10ish reps in.
After a while, we reached the bakery. As soon as we walked in, I was greeted by this random dude, and he saw my Rubik's cube.
"Is that a Rubik's cube ya got there, huh? Well I see YouTubers doing it really fast, in like 5 seconds," he blurted. "Seems everyone carrying one knows how to solve it fast, so I challenge you to solve it in a minute."
"Umm, well-" I said.
"Okay good, I'm scrambling it," he said as he grabbed the cube
"But ca-"
"Oh and I'll also pay you if you do it."
He had blond hair, was wearing a brown jacket and seemed pretty sketchy, but a minute was plenty of time, and it was free money, so I agreed to it. However, it wasn't really my choice. After 3 minutes of him scrambling it, he gave it to me and immediately started the clock. After having no inspection time, I had to solve the white cross as efficiently as possible, which took around 10 seconds. Then I had to do F2L, which meant the first two layers. That took roughly 22 seconds, then two more of his friends came to watch. My palms started sweating; I had never been challenged before and the nerves were catching up with me. Then my stomach growled again, and I was hungry and nervous. Things could have looked better, but I had a minute and I was still making pretty good time. I finished OLL (orientation of the last layer) in 30 seconds. Now the man was counting down every 5 seconds, which wasn't helping. I have to admit this man knew how to bring the pressure on because I was at the last step and the worst thing happened. I messed up.
Now I was nervous. It had been nearly 45 seconds, and I was basically back at OLL. Having no time to think about it, I had to finish OLL faster than ever. My heart was pounding, and I was cubing so fast I thought the cube might pop. He was counting down by the second now. I had started PLL (permutation of the last layer). I was at 56 seconds. I was almost there; I just had a little bit left to go. The guy kept counting "57… 58." Was I going to make it? I was cubing so fast I didn't even know what I was doing, but I was still doing it, I just had barely any time, and then I did it! I completed the last perm- solving the cube in 59.3 seconds.
"Oh," he said. "Well uhh, good job. Here's your money," he grunted.
"Thanks," I said.
It all felt so unreal. I looked at the dollar bill in my hands. I looked at my cube. I wanted to be a speedcuber; if I wanted to be good, I couldn't fold under pressure like that. But I still successfully solved it, and although I needed to work on it I still could get better. As I was walking by, a whole table was cheering, and I saw another kid with a cube. Wow, I thought I am never doing that again. Then I went back to cubing in peace. Cubing is important to me because it used to help take up time it helped pratice fine motor skills and more.
