Storey

Blue disco lights dangle everywhere. A loud and enraging song plays and the beats reverberate in frenzy. A crowded stage lies, a crowd of drunk maniacs, who in the day are sophisticated, right now dance and shake like there is no tomorrow. And they call this music!

Real names apart, let us call me Trill. I am standing by the drinks counter, just alongside the stage. The bartender is looking at me, the only person who is as disinterested as me.

"Come on Trill! Join us! Whoo!" A lady shouts from the other side of the stage. The bartender hands me another glass of cold drink without asking and smiles. I smile back. "Ninth person and…your ninth glass!"

"This special dance number just for you all guys! Make some noise!!!" The DJ goes wild. I gulp down the glass in one go and wipe off the sweat from my forehead. The noise penetrates right through the skull, as if someone is drilling a hole right in my head. I can feel the room moving and trembling. My legs become all funny. The beats echo around. And my phone vibrates. I run out of the party hall, into the parking area and I take out my phone from my pocket. 1 missed call from an unknown number. How different my life would have been if I had just ignored it!

I call, the bell rings, one round, two round. The call connects and immediately the line goes dead. I sit on the bonnet of an extravagant looking SUV, calming myself down. My phone rings again, the soothing ringtone audible this time. I let it ring for sometime, reminding myself what music really is. "Hello!" No answer, just a tired exhaling sound, rapid and stressed. "Who is this?" The same breathing sound, more avid than before. The line goes dead again. I sit for a while and my phone rings again. The same number. I pick it up, at once this time. "Hello" A soft weeping sound fills my ears, weirdly familiar. And then a tired yet smooth feminine voice says, "I want to die…"

I stay quiet for a while, trying to recognize the speaker somehow. "This is Trill?" "Yes…how do you know me?

"You don't remember me, do you?" "…I feel like I know you but…I cannot remember"

"It's ok. Nobody does, nobody remembers me anymore."

"What do you mean…?" A hushed laughter, the one which is full of helplessness and giving up.

"It does not matter anymore. You don't need to know, it will be of no use in a few hours. I am ending it all..."

"Who is this? Please explain!" Another giggle, this one so clear that I could almost see a face, the lips twisting upward in a smile, full of woes.

"I told you…I want to die."

"Why? And who are you in the first place?"

"I am sitting at the edge on the terrace of my building, the old one if you remember? You do, right? My building, the terrace? Ah! That seems so yesterday, as if it happened in a different lifetime. This isn't the life I wished for!"

My heart fills with tension, as if my heart is tied to a string which pulls it down. Who is this lady? Why is her voice sounding so very familiar? Why does she wish to die?" "I don't understand! Who are you!" The soft laughter again, followed by a weak sob and the cracking words, "I am Flute!"

The string is pulled, my heart drowns. Memories of my childhood cloud my mind and the gripping flashbacks of that time rain down. A homely school, lovely teachers and even lovelier friends, Flute being one of the best I ever had. Money is such a girl, it takes all your time as you chase it and with each step you take it seems to be more distant. It distances you from your friends. What a pity I did not even remain in contact with friends whom I spent years with!

"…Why?" I say. I don't know what else to say.

"I am sorry. Like always, I only call you when I need help! But, this time I don't really need any help. Nothing can help me now, it is too late. I am dying…"

"Why? What the hell has happened? You cannot die just like that!" Rough screeching sounds make my heartbeat skip, I could tell Flute was getting up. The weeps faded with each passing moment.

I run all the way to my car, the only thing that I could think of doing. I jam the key into the hole and I hit the accelerator, steering out of the parking into traffic towards the building where she told she was. I drive straight by my instincts, half knowing and the other half handled by my sub-consciousness.

"Hold on wherever you are! I am coming to your building as soon as possible." I shout into my phone. I can hear her sobbing, even with the honking and screaming of the traffic.

Trust me, a few minutes earlier I was in a party hall listening to party music and now I am in a middle of traffic, full of honking and screeching and people shouting at each other. The former is still worse as per me. At least the latter, isn't veiling voice under the pardah of music.

I take a sharp left turn, entering a deserted lane, away from the struggling traffic. I said the former was worse, that also implies that the latter is still bad, just less bad. The phone went dead around this time, I hadn't noticed exactly when and I had started turning pale. Even the thought of being late sent chills down my spine. I noticed the lack of trees by the sides, there used to be greenery all around this place a decade earlier. Now, there were just buildings and houses and offices, no sign of any foliage. A roundabout, with a fountain in the centre came into view. It never used to work, the fountain. But today, as I passed the roundabout, crystal clear water erupted out and sprinkled down gently, now this was music, soothing and damp.

I dialled the number again, as the building came into view. It looked abandoned in the night, the lights all switched off, the paint scratched and faded and a grim essence all around. I got out of the car, the phone still ringing. I raced up the dim and dark staircase, jumping and skipping two and three stairs at a time. The computerised voice shouts, "The number you dialled is not responding, please try again later."

I ran up the staircase and opened the ajar iron gate, the view is chilling. A pitch dark cemented floor, uneven and grey. On the right side, by the edge, a lady stands looking down, her back turned to me. A phone lies on one side, its screen fading and finally turning off.

"Don't!"

She looks back surprised and takes a step back, towards me. I sighed in relief. I hadn't been so late. I looked at her, completely transformed. Her hair were brown instead of black as they used to be. And they were open and wavy instead of being tied back in a braid. Her eyes, although the same brown color, were hazy now. Her face was full of tears and as she looked at me, she smiled through the tears. Her fingers were still nimble but hidden beneath She sat down, her feet dangling down from the sixth storey. I joined her, I sat down hesitating and not looking down. She smiled again.

"You are not falling down! Why do you have to be reminded everytime!"

"I am here to say the same to you!"

The smile fades.

"What happened?"

"I don't wish to live anymore."

"Why?"

"When was the last time you talked to me?"

"10 years or so"

"A lot can happen in a decade. Just a year ago, I thought I had all that I wanted, and now there is nothing. Funny, isn't it?"

I stay quiet. There is a silence and she continues.

"I am like the Betelgeuse, dimming everyday and finally, it is time for me to explode."

"Nothing would be the same without you just like the night sky wouldn't be the same without Betelguese."

She smiles again but not at all in the reassuring way. "Marriages are stupid! You make promises which you'd one day break knowingly as if they are expired. Life has expiry date, promises don't!"

Silence.

"It's been just five years. And my marriage is a wreck already!" "It is all going to be fine. Let out all of this poison." "Even when we lived in the same house, we weren't their. Mentally, he was always in his workplace, attending calls and fixing meetings. With passing days, we hardly spoke and we never realised. And then after more than four years of our marriage and disappointment, there came a news. We were expecting a baby. My parents foresaw it as a plot twist in our relation. Even I thought it would make things better."

"Then?"

"It didn't. The distance grew even more. A child is supposed to bring you happiness and make your bond even stronger, isn't it? It never did in our case. I was confined to the house and he was out forever, even at nights on business trips and all. A successful entrepreneur after all!"

"It is alright. You can make it work and if in case, it stil doesn't you can always start over, from a blank page."

She laughs and mutters, "I thought so too. It is all going to be fine. But then this month of January laughed in my face for thinking so. I was in the hospital, for the delivery. I had called him to inform, he couldn't have been less bothered. He only had time to mutter, "In a meeting. Can't talk now" when I was screaming in agony."

Silence again. She pants and sobs as she fears to even remember those events.

"I had fainted after giving birth. I had turned flaccid and pale and weak. And when I came to full consciousness, I had asked the doctor for my child..." She broke into tears, as they flushed down her face. I comforted her as much as I could.

"Stillborn! Why has everything been so cruel? I cannot take this anymore. I want to die. I want peace!"

She had cried for hours, as I comforted her. The sky above was starless, and the temperature was dropping. Alas, she had slept.

I had been exhausted too, both mentally and physically. I had thought about reunions, but never had it ever crossed my mind that it would be as such. I remember helping her walk down the staircase, still sleepy. I had helped her into the backseat of my car and she had dozed off almost instantly...

And I had drived to her new home, where her parents dwelled. I could think of nothing else.

The thought that in a parellel world, I was still in that party hall drinking my tenth glass haunted me. It still does sometimes. But whenever it does, I call her, not as jolly as before but recovering speedily. Sometimes, I pay her a visit, shifting my priorities. The Betelguese may be dimming and it may explode in the future. But I feel good when I tell myself that it has exploded already. The light just hasn't reached the earth.