Two Lives in a Note | Self-written Short Fiction Story

01 Oct 2007

A man was hanging from the fan when he opened his eyes. His head was in considerable agony. And felt drugged, too. He didn't know what had happened to him. After several minutes when he got to be ordinary at that point saw handcuffs in his hands. The loft wasn't much outfitted. A bed, an office table, another small table, and a chair were all. Jayesh was lying in a dusty and dirty floor. He was bled from his head. Moreover battled to stand on his feet. Checked his pockets but got nothing. At that point, he looked for the exit but it was bolted from the inside. "Key.. key... there must be some key" he mumbled. He had begun looking all over but didn't found it. The flat had two rooms one was joined to another and a kitchen which was bolted as well. He thought of a lost keyring containing two keys. "Why this trick man bolted the kitchen entryway" Jayesh mumbled in dissatisfaction. Again he looked, trying to find something but eventually found himself caught with a hanging man.

He forcefully attacked the main door and shouted. "Anybody help me!!!". He did all he could to escape. He felt frustrated.

"You can find your path only by peace because peace is the conclusion of retraining your intellect. That can be achieved by knowing who you are." He recalled the words of his father that had been expressed to him in his days of suffering. After those words, he calmed down, looked at the left bleeding eyeball of the hanging man, and started looking again First in the hanging man's pocket, then under the bed, and eventually in the office table drawer. He noticed two folded papers with a pen at the extreme back of the drawer. It was written as,

"Hello Jayesh, I know you will be the first person to read my note, a suicide note. You must be wondering who I am, how you got here, why are you handcuffed, and many other questions. So, let me give my introduction, I am Vikas, brother of Garima. I have been planning this for the last four months. The lock of the kitchen door is automatic and can only be unlocked with my eye's retina. This is the same case with the main door. You can't break it. I want you to be punished for what you did." 

After reading that note, he got very scared.

Sep 2006

Amid the college days, Jayesh with his four friends featured day by day the fresher of college Garima. They were senior to her. And frequently took ragging of her. But one day, when all the students were on a college trip, at night Jayesh covered up a camcorder in one changing room. When Jayesh saw Garima, she tried to venture to another room but he blocked her way and asked her friends to go. "Where", he asked, she pointed to her clothes which she carried in her arms. "Oh go that room", he told her rashly. When she came out, Jayesh picked the camcorder and went to his room, where his friends were waiting. After the trip, Jayesh called her when she was entering the college gate and asked her friends to go. He showed some clips of that recording. Garima got scared and said, "Delete this video otherwise I will go to the principal's office." He chuckled and said. "Go ahead you'll have to confront my father." Jayesh extorted her "be with me for a night... otherwise you'd be famous", Jayesh demanded this and added, "In return, you may get your exquisite video". 

That entire day Garima was strained. Seeing her friend like this Ruhi asked her "Garima, is everything okay why are you so quiet?", "Yeah, I am fine... no, wait I am not... just a cerebral pain nothing else probably because I am tired", she replied in her breaking voice which made Ruhi dicier. After classes were over, she left for home without any discussion with her friends. She went through that day considering that video. At home seeing her sister so tense Vikas asked her, "Hello Garu is everything okay? you appear distinctive today." She nodded slowly and rushed to her room. Vikas had cooked something tasty for her sister after seeing her so tense. He mumbled, "She will become cheerful, eating her favorite dish".

She sat alone in the darkness, didn't eat anything from dusk to dawn. All those incidents of ragging became fresh in her mind. She was pushed further in depression. She wanted to run away and hide in a secure lonely place never to be found again. The smile on her face was snatched away forever. Everyday torture was not something she could face. She can't come out as a winner of her own thoughts. Pale cold hands, cottonmouth, sweaty forehead, red eyes searching for her misery. It maddened her how she smiled like the best person in the world.

After a while, he knocked her sister's room and asked, "Garu come quick I cooked something extraordinary for you". When she didn't reply he knocked once more and said, "Garima open the door its dinner time" and knocked on the door once more. Doing this 3 to 4 times a few neighbors came outside the flat and asked him, "What happened Vikas?", "Garima isn't answering I am attempting to call her for dinner", "Let me do this" saying that one of the neighbors hit hard at door and it broke the door's latch. They saw Garima hanging from the fan. He was tucked for a moment in the time cycle. One of the neighbors reported to the police. 

The police investigated the room and the house and asked several questions to Vikas. Policeman, "Where were your parents?", Vikas said, "They were dead a few years before in road accident", "What you do?", "I work in a lock company. I design advanced locks", "Was she scared of anything?", "No she was alright but today, when she, came from the college she silently rushed to her room. Usually, we talked about her college day". "So it means something happened in her college today", policeman guessed from her brother's words. The next day police went to college and asked from Garima's friends but can't conclude anything as from her friend's words. 

Within two months they closed the case and recorded it as a suicide. But Vikas was not satisfied by the police investigation. He chose to do their part on his own. He went to college and looked for Ruhi, her close friend. After her college ended, he saw her and called her for a little conversation. "I want your help, as my sister was your best friend" he requested her. She said, "A few days ago policemen came to our college one of your senior Jayesh and his friends were muttering about some video of college trip. I don't know about this and I can't say that to the police, as Jayesh is very dangerous to us.", "What do you mean by dangerous?", he asked strangely. "His father is the principal", "Okay anything else?", "And they always did ragging with the fellow juniors, especially with Garima" she added in her talk. 

"If laughter is the best medicine then why their laugh took my sister's life, why it is used to horrify, why she committed suicide" he kept thinking while riding the bike. When Vikas reached his apartment he planned something cynical in order to teach Jayesh a tough lesson. "Police can't do what I can do",  he said in his own thought. 

01 Oct 2007

At noon Jayesh got a call from an obscure number, "Hello Jayesh, I have few pictures from your college trip related to Garima and you. I think this is not very accommodating for you if somebody else gets these. I am sure, you'll be in trouble. Come quickly to Wing A-71 Royal Apartment". Jayesh was stressed about the call and surged to said address.

He went there. Knocked on the door but the door was unlocked. Gradually he ventured inside. It was dim. And from his left, he got a hit, hard on his head with a rod. He laid on the floor and became unconscious. "How is my welcome dear?". Vikas said to unconscious Jayesh. Vikas handcuffed him and dragged to the kitchen. Vikas dumbed the rod within the dustbin outside the passage near the lift. Sat down in the chair and wrote down two notes with crying eyes and left that in-office table's drawer.

"Sisters like fruity nuts in brother's cookie of life, by blood we were brother and sister but from the heart we were friends, she is like a mother and I am father, mother, and brother in this cruel world of Garima. Why ragging is necessary for these days too, which makes a person cry and broken. I am letting go of the thoughts that do not make me stronger this is the easy way to say but hard to implement on oneself  after what you did Jayesh." He left the note in the drawer. "Garu you were my only colorful world", he said his last words before his death. 

Jayesh continued reading Vikas's second note,

"Punished like in hell. You are the only reason for my sister's and my death. You must be wondering about how these locks were made. By the way, I work in a lock manufacturing company this was my recent security lock which I made them early before the desired date because of you. One more thing, the main door's lock will send an alert message to police headquarter when you will push it harder". 

Jayesh was stunned. He regretted himself and sat down. "I hope you never have to think about anything as much as I think about you. In the long run, something you are doing is progressing to be a botch at that point you may fall to the floor crying. However, it is finally happening to you tolerating the botches you did in another's life but time is the foremost powerful thing in this universe it would be too late and you can't do anything." Jayesh recalled his father's words while sobbing. After a while, he noticed strides and shadow outside the main door. He froze hid beneath the bed. The next minute with a gunfire door opened. He saw several feet in uniforms and a few casuals. One of Policeman said, "get the body down and look all over." With another gunshot, they opened the kitchen door and one constable said, "Sir, here is another dead body". All of them ventured. "I can clarify all this to you, arrest me I am the root cause of this" Jayesh said coming out of the bed. Meanwhile, he saw his own dead body in handcuffs carried out of the kitchen by policemen.