Those Ten Minutes

Mindy looked up in the sky at the stars. 

It was rarely something she did on a usual night, especially at 2 am. She was just not getting any sleep tonight. It was her decision to stop consuming the pills every night. It had been only two days since she decided this. She was tired of depending on them. It was six months now. It was about time she felt that she needed to confront the truth. She had lived in denial for too long. 

Mindy stood on her 12th floor balcony. 

It was a pleasant night. And absolutely quiet too. She looked at the building opposite hers. She thought she saw a shadow of an animal, like that of a panther, in one of the balconies of the flat. She peered her eyes harder. It was a dog just roaming restlessly from one end of the balcony to another. It was as restless as her perhaps. While she chose to be still, it moved.  

Mindy entered her bedroom. 

She recalled being able to sleep ‘just about okay’ the previous night. Maybe the sleeping pills’ effect was still there then. Or maybe it was the first-day determination. She could not tell. But she was back to square-one the second night. She had tried sleeping earlier tonight. Tossing and turning in the bed made it even harder. Luckily, she thought she didn’t share the bed with anybody. She was alone. Married sometime ago. Not anymore. She chose not to sleep until she felt sleepy.

Mindy then walked into the living room.

She switched the TV on. Watching a good, in fact a not-so-good documentary would perhaps induce sleep, she thought. She ran through all the options and then stopped at "how things are made?" It was to do with how cardboard boxes are made. Ok, this should make her sleep, she thought. She suddenly looked through the TV at the only room in the house that was closed. Should she finally open the door and face the truth, she wondered. She finally got up from the couch, placing the TV remote on the table.  

Mindy opened the door.

Things were neatly kept. Just like her husband kept them. She tried to not touch them but the police had turned everything around. It was painful putting things back just like they were kept before. She nevertheless did it. It was her husband's home-office, as he liked calling it.

Mindy then recalled that evening, six months ago. 

It was not like any other evening. Mani was looking deep into his laptop. His eyes were red. He had a bottle of scotch on his table and he had already made himself a drink. Maybe he was already two glasses down. He didn’t notice his wife entering the room.

“Is everything okay?” Mindy asked.

He was quiet.

"You don’t look well," she said.

“The market crashed!”

Mindy was aware of it. It was all over the news. She chose to be quiet. 

“You know I have lost all our earnings! And I owe money too!” he said in a raised voice, unaware that it was raised. 

“We will do something about it,” Mindy said.  

“Do what?” he said.

Times were indeed bad. Who had thought that a pandemic would appear from nowhere and cause havoc across the globe! People were losing jobs, unable to pay their bills and even dying because of other reasons than the disease itself!

“We do have our savings,” Mindy said in a hopeful voice.

"Savings?” he looked up at the ceiling. His eyes turned even more red.

Mindy was quiet.

“All the savings were here!” He said, pointing at the screen.

Mindy didn’t understand him. 

“Mindy, I had put all our savings in the stock market!”

Mindy felt as if her heart had stopped beating suddenly. 

“I know! I have been such a fool and a liar. I had taken all the savings out. I just thought the money was sitting idle in the bank and...the market was doing so well...until a few days ago!” He was now sounding terribly helpless. He gulped another big sip of scotch.

Mindy kept quiet. She felt more betrayed than sad. She then quietly walked out of the room.

Mindy shook herself out of the past.

She felt she was better off living in denial. She rushed to the kitchen and opened the cabinet where the sleeping pills were kept. She filled a glass with water. Her hands were shaky. She could not find the pills anywhere. She then remembered that she had purposely kept them in the car. She hated her decision now. How positive she was just until this evening. 

Six months ago...

“Are you sure there was no letter? No note?” the police officer asked her as another police officer looked for clues in the room. 

“No! Nothing at all,” she remembered answering. She was still coming to terms with what had happened in the last 10 minutes after she had walked out of the room leaving Mani staring at the laptop screen and drinking what was perhaps his last glass of scotch.

She was in a shock. She regretted leaving the room then. He was in a mess already. Instead of supporting him, she chose to walk out of the room. How did she know that he would then take such a drastic step! Gun shot! That was the second piece of information she got to know on that day that came as a surprise to her! That he had a gun! When did he even get a license? And why did he even get it in the first place? Was this recent? Was it pre-planned? The police had checked the gun’s license number and told her that it was one-year old. She felt that she had not known her husband at all. They had been married for three years now. Are three years not enough to know the inside out of your partner? Only if she had stayed back in the room. 

Mindy walked back to the balcony.

It was 4 am. She was beginning to feel slightly sleepy. She was scared that sleep would fly away as soon as she would hit the bed. She once again looked across at the building facing hers. The dog was not in the balcony any longer. The owner must have opened the bedroom door. Mindy then just looked up at the stars.