(Flash fiction)

Mita stared at the night ceiling. The penumbral designs by the rotating fan blades interrupted the mildly lit area, causing her vision to cascade across the spread before her. Oh and what a vision it was! She shed a hot tear at her ludicrous chimera, lying on her soft mattress now dented as she turned around, lost in her thoughts mercilessly invading her… non-existence.

Prem… her heartthrob, the only man she had ever loved since they were only ten, was all asset to tie the knot tomorrow. He was the only one to match her crazy intelligent self. How could he crush her heart like that…? How could he make her despise the few good memories she had…? dint they promise each other an in-sync incarnation till eternity…? Why… just a couple of months ago they were engaged putting an end to numerous speculations around them, if the gorgeous couple from college had broken up. She looked at the tiny ruby dazzling on her digit remembering Prem’s libidinous eyes and a tightly contorted face as he tried to put a lid on his wanton lust. She had saved herself till after the engagement, in spite of his umpteen attempts to pop the cherry. She was on the seventh heaven… finally the gorgeous man wanted by innumerable gals now solely belonged to her and she had the privilege to hold all of him in her desirous fist… did she…?

A month of passion filled carnal pleasures leaving them both wanting for more she couldn’t wait to tie the knot and have him for herself as and when she desired. She ignored that tingling, the premonition of something amiss in store. She ignored his wandering eye, reigning in her resentment gradually rising with graded intensity till she could hold no longer. She lashed out at him as she caught him red handed with the bar girl in the hotel closet, leaving Mita’s drunk oblivion self, back at their table. She had had enough and had turned to leave when he had stuttered. “Mita… my love…I am sorry… I don’t know what came over me… can you forgive me one last time…? please…just one more drink… before we leave… please sweetheart…” His chocolate boy looks always melted her naïve heart and that night was no different.

Prem twisted and turned on his fragrant filled extra soft bed. As he lay in the decorated suite of the Grand Central hotel, he looked around at the picturesque floral patterns around. It had to have cost a fortune and the main double bed in the adjoining area was reserved for his golden night tomorrow. But this was something Kritika Sengar could afford and her billionaire family could be the last hope for his bankrupt family… He did feel a thing for her or for any other gal for that matter and guilt exuded his heart as he remembered Mita… his Mita… her body her heart…her everything. She was his best friend, his soul mate… his partner in crime…his perrenial shadow. No one could match up to her, not a soul could hear his crying heart and all he felt was the walls closing in on him. Could he ever be with her again…? At least just as her shadow…? How he missed her… he had no choice… did he…?

He heard it and raised his head… he heard it again…wait there was a knock at the window…? What on earth was happening…? He was on the ninth floor for crying out aloud. Suddenly the breeze brazenly pushed open the locked window panes leading to the ledger and he saw her… Mita in her radiant bridal splendor holding her hands out for him. How could it be…? He had poisoned that last drink and the crime was so clean there weren’t any witnesses. She was letting him go then… and he pleaded retribution every single day from then. But the bulk of heavily paid lawyers saved his hide and the case remained among the innumerable dusty files in the honorable court of law. Well… Kritika’s family could manage to hold it out.

Tears rolled down his cheeks as he stood up on autopilot and heavy trembling legs carried him to the open window. Suddenly she disappeared leaving behind a shadow of her stoic self…

“Mita…is that you darling…I am sorry… I couldn’t help it…” he was bawling his heart out now.

“…Come to me love… lets have our happily ever after…” The shadow whispered, the voice attracting him to the ledge like an iron to magnet.

All he could see was a pair of hands gesturing him to come closer and he did just that….

The night duty guards heard a thud and found the would-be groom from the ninth floor lying in a dismembered pool of blood…A spotlessly clean handkerchief was found jutting out of his blood- stained pocket. The initials within an embroidered heart on it visible clearly in the flood lit hotel perimeter amidst the cacophony of the assembled onlookers. ‘M-P‘

–Priya Nayak-Gole

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