The failed plan

Prompt – 

Raunak lay still in his bed. It was way past midnight but sleep was alien to his eyes. He got the news half-past eleven when he was at the coffee maker at the office. He could barely stand after that call. Every shade of grief and terror passed through his eyes but he could not say any word except a soft 'No'. Death of a loved one does this to a person. He left his office to go to Simi's house to see her one last time.

A taxi stood in front of Simi's house. Nobody got out.

‘Little bit ahead', said Raunak to the cabbie.

He walked to the riverside where they last met and stopped at the spot where they sat. He sat there and kept looking at the horizon, the distant place where the sky met the water. He sat there motionless till his phone buzzed. It was Simi's husband.

"Cremation is tomorrow."

"Okay."

Raunak had to leave the place after the police told him to leave the place for it was dangerous to be there at night. He stood up and walked to his home, two streets away from Simi's.

"The lights of her room are still on." He murmured as he passed through her house.

He stood there gathering the courage to go inside. After a good 15 minutes, he knew he will never be able to do that. To look at his friend in such a state.

You knew she was going to do it. You should have saved her.

You disappointed her every time. It's only fair that you disappoint her once again as she lies lifeless.

It's not a suicide Raunak, it's a murder. You killed her. You killed your friend, your best friend's wife.

He sank his face in the pillow, placed his hands on his ears and screamed loudly so that the pillow muffled his scream. It was not enough to keep the voices quiet. He was haunted by his demons after all that had happened.

"I'm so ...”. For the first time today, tears burst out of his eyes. He was devastated by the news from the beginning, but the finality of it struck him.

He knew he had hell to pay. 

_____________________________________________________________________________

“How could this have happened? She wasn’t supposed to have died. It had been planned so well. They had done their research, talked to the right folks. Wait . Could this be plan B? NO. This wasn’t a day for silver linings. Or maybe…”

The maelstrom of thoughts continued to ravage his mind as he trudged past his house, moving seemingly heedless to the world around.

WHACK!

Something hard struck him, and he heard before he felt the sickening crunch of his nose as it broke. Blood had welled and was dripping in a slow steady stream before his vision cleared. A bunch of teens with cricket bats stood frozen, and an obviously daft one managed to say “Uncle…bal-” before he got thumped on the head by one of his sister’s sons. Raunak kicked the cork ball to the left, into a drain and walked on. He hated those kids anyway. Half an hour later he arrived at the dilapidated two-storey guest house, walking up its ugly rot-iron spiral staircase. It creaked ominously as he went up to the room.

As he searched in his pockets for the key, he inadvertently leaned on the door which then promptly swung inwards and he fell in. “That’s strange.” he thought as he summoned the will to get up off the filthy carpet. “Maybe I didn’t lock it. Wouldn’t have needed to, if everything had gone according to the goddamn plan!” he mused out loud, sneezing as dust and crusted blood mingled to give him the worst blocked nose ever. He sat on the bed and reached in to a drawer, pulling out a bottle of cheap strong rum that Simi had, to his consternation, liked a lot. She should have been the one drinking this! The voices screamed as he chugged straight from the bottle, the alcohol burning his throat and numbing his thoughts. After a second long swig from the second bottle, he put it down too hard, finally cracking along with the bottle as he screamed like an animal, the room spinning around his already besieged senses and sanity. He shut his bloodshot eyes. He didn’t want to look at his hand, because the blow had been so forceful that a large piece of the glass had stabbed through his palm, which was fine because the immediacy of the pain distracted him for a while. It all seemed too much to bear though, as his vision suddenly tinged red before it went black. His last thoughts as he fainted were of relief, and mild dismay at his weakness, at being knocked out by nothing more than a broken nose, stabbed palm and a guilty conscience.

Minutes later he opened his eyes (though to him it might have been days). The centre of his face felt like it was fire. Not on fire. Fire itself— not really a material object but something that is hot and moving on its own and tenuous, which a strong gust could end forever. A shadowy figure stood above him .The owner? No. He had paid the greasy man to keep out of his business. Discretion was the selling point of such establishments anyway. But then who? A furious shake of his head cleared his vision, and then he saw the man’s face, not fully recognizing him yet . Ow, it really did hurt a lot more than a stabbed palm and broken nose could explain. The fire seemed to race around and above and over his skull, destroying all thoughts it came in contact with. He grit his teeth and took a slow tough breath. Blinking slowly, his mind finally caught up with his eyes as he identified the man, surprise dawning on his destroyed face. It was Jashan, Simi’s husband and his closest friend.

“Hey buddy. Here.” Jashan proffered a hand, which Raunak reluctantly took and sat up, gingerly. A scraping sound caused him to glance at Jashan’s other hand, which showed him a rod, dripping blood at one end. Surprise changed to horror as some functional part of his mind figured out why he had fainted. The bastard must have struck him on his broken nose. He lurched back, trying to turn around and run but another hit to the stomach sent him flying to the ground.

“Don’t run, idiot. You won’t make it.”

Raunak lay stunned, coughing. Sensing the need to, he then murmured, his voice quavering, “Whut? Please don’b. Why did yo-” a bloody cough stopped him, and he spat bloody phlegm a few times. Jashan let it play out, calmly watching his best bud wheezing, quaking and grovelling.

“Do you really need to ask why? Don’t worry, it won’t last very long after all.” Raunak looked up at Jashan, then down.

“It was a misubderstabdig. I’b sorry.”

Jashan snorted and grew visibly enraged at this. He pulled back and kicked Raunak hard in the ribs. “A misunderstanding? JUST A MISUNDERSTANDING? ” He screamed. “Trying. To. Rape. My. Wife.Twice. Is. Not. A. Misunderstanding.” Jash spat as he punctuated each word with a furious kick.

“How… are you here Jash?”, Raunak persisted, incredulity almost stronger than the pain. The sharp pain had now jarred him into gathering his wits. He definitely felt a few broken ribs.

“You never really were the smart one, Rau,were you? Don’t you see it? It wasn’t your plan. It was ours. You and I haven’t really been friends. Not since last year, when you did what you did, you snake. Hell, Simi and you had been as close as you and I were but then you had to go ahead and do that. That and more actually, but you thought that was all I knew.”

“But how… she’s dead. If either of our plans had worked she won’t have died …” Raunak whispered.

“No, she isn’t. You two did plan a fake suicide, but I let you do that. Think about it. Did you actually see her body? Who told you she was dead? Whom did you talk to just before you slept last night and after you woke up today? Who told you to stay put, that she was gone forever? Who reminded you that the cremation is tomorrow?”

“Are you so blinded, Jash ?… going to do this to me over what I did when I was more drunk than I had ever been, and … so was she? It never really happened, man. You know that.”

“Oh, and that’s supposed to make me feel better? Right from the first day we saw her at the university, I told you I loved her. You know how serious I am about what is mine. When you did it for the first time, your puppy face convinced us it didn’t really happen. Just too much drinks and drugs made us see things, apparently. We were young. Everyone makes mistakes.”

“You won’t get away with thi-”

Jashan punched him in the face. Raunak spat out a tooth.

“Are you even listening? It was our plan. I own this guest house. That sleazy man is just the manager. You’ve been had. This is an actual plan to make you pay, since there are no laws in this land for the depths of betrayal you have sunk to. It’s her word against yours for the court, but that’s more than enough for me. Things are not happening according to your stupid lonely-wife-fakes-death-and-elopes-with-husband’s-best-friend plan but our husband-and-wife-team-up-to-end-scum-in-human-form plan .” Jashan said, in a low emotionless voice.

“Heh. Should’ve done it when I had the chance, now that she’s gone and done this in turn.”

Jashan's eyes steeled and he started raining blows indiscriminately, till Raunak’s eyes rolled back in their sockets and his knuckles began to bleed.After about two minutes, he sat down on the floor, breathing raggedly.

Raunak was somehow still conscious, and said,“But still, there’s too much left unsure in this plan of yours, Jash. How did you plan to cover up after I healed and came after you? You definitely aren’t the type of man to kil-”

“Oh, shouldn’t I show rather than tell, Rau?” Jash smiled grimly and stood up.

Three swings of the heavy rod later, Jashan walked out of the room, whistling lightly.

He walked slowly. The bridge was coming up ahead. A cool breeze was blowing, bringing with the smell of fresh fish, and the sounds of the flowing river. He stopped at the middle of the quiet bridge, gazing out at one of the prettiest sunsets he had ever seen. Birds were returning home for the day, specks of black against the orange sky. The occasional car honked but it was otherwise quiet. Childhood memories of walking home with his parents often brought him here when things were bad. He closed his eyes, taking in the sounds, the smells and the sensations he had always loved.With his eyes still closed he leaned over the railing and leapt into the river below.

All three of them were now dead.