Megha stood at the door, looking through the keyhole and screaming from time to time that they were going to kill her, while I sat at my table reading Hardy’s ‘Far From the Maddening Crowd’. Megha hadn’t had left my room for the last two days and all she did during those two days was screaming after every few minutes that they were going to kill her. She didn’t allow me to leave my room too.
I heard a noise, and as I looked down from my window to spot a white van standing at our gate, she made an unearthly scream, widening her eyes and tearing her lungs: “They are here! Save me, Rory! Hide me under your skin.”
I told her that no one was going to kill her, but she wouldn’t listen and there were footsteps approaching my door.
“They are here,” she whispered into my ears, shivering, and hid behind the curtains.
“Open the door, Rory,” I heard my mother say.
“What do you want?”
“I have brought food,” she said.
“I am not hungry.”
A second later, my door was torn down and four men tied me to a stretcher and took me away, while Megha stood behind the curtain, staring at me from a corner.
She was inside the ambulance as they were taking me, saying they were going to kill her. She was in the corridors of the hospital, screaming they were going to kill her. She was inside my room nights after nights after everyone would fall asleep reminding me that they were going to kill her. But one day, I couldn’t find her anymore.
After nine months I was taken out of my hospital room to a garden, and a tall man asked me, handing me a glass of lemonade and staring at the clouds.
“When did you first see her?”
“I was six years old. Matthew had broken my nose. I was bleeding. I ran behind the school building to cry alone, and Megha was there. She gave me her handkerchief. She treated me well. She always treated me well. I cannot remember anything without her.”
“When was the last time you saw her?” he said.
“Five months ago, in the corridor, not looking at me but staring outside a window. She wasn’t screaming anymore.”
I noticed a wicked smile on his face at this point.
“Your mother wants to take you home,” he said. “She wouldn’t bother you again.”
“Bother?” I stared miserably at his face. I had never felt lonelier.
******************
When the sun rose next day, the gate of the hospital was opened for me, and looking outside, everything appeared to have changed beyond explanations as if in nine months, eternity had passed, and my mother wasn’t there outside, to pick me up and Megha was nowhere. They had killed her, finally.
I was hoping to see mother when I would reach home, but not only she wasn’t there, the walls of our house were all bleak and rotting and I screamed for her for a hundred times, looking for her in every corner of the house. She wasn’t there and my head had started to ache. It ached so much that I fell on the floor that wasn’t swept in years and laid there till it was morning again.
I woke up hearing a familiar voice. It was Megha’s. She was standing near the window, looking straight into my eyes and repeating over and over that she was getting tired of being killed.
“What has happened to you?” I asked, as I noticed now that her skin was full of wrinkles and her hair was all grey.
“It’s my tenth birthday again, Rory,” she said, “But see, what you have made me!”
“What has happened to you?” I asked again, bewildered and still lying on the floor, breathing in dust.
At this, she came and sat by me. I could see, her eyes had sunk and her fingers trembled as she ran them through my hair.
“What has happened to you?” she replied. “You should have let me go, Rory, the day the truck had crushed me. You should have let me go then.”
“I have no one without you,” I said.
“You have no one still, Rory.”
She walked back towards the window, looked down outside and started to narrate a story- a story that filled me with fears. A story I thought I had long forgotten, but didn’t quite forget.
“You had phoned me to tell those faceless men were gathering inside your room to kill you, and I must come to save you. Rory, you were my friend. The only friend I ever had, and I knew there were no faceless men and no one was going to kill you, but you were sick. You are still sick.”
“I was standing against the windowpane, exactly where you are standing now,” I muttered, remembering the story.
“Yes, you were here,” she said, looking at me for a second, and then looking outside the window again, she continued, “When I reached your gate, standing across the street, I saw you here and I feared you would fall from the window, and so I screamed. I screamed my heart out and it was loud enough that I didn’t hear the honk of the truck approaching over my voice. I ran towards you, but I could never reach. I died that day, a week before my tenth birthday, but I saved you, didn’t I, Rory?”
“Yes, I said,” raising myself up and sitting on the floor, “Your scream vaporized away the faceless men inside my room, but you were lying in the middle of the street, in a pool of your own blood. The men never came back.”
“You should have let me go that day, Rory,” she said. “See what you have made me. You had replaced the faceless men with me. I was ten years old. They killed me so many times in that hospital over the years, but you brought me back every single time. How many times you remember me getting killed with all the pills you took?”
“Once,” I replied.
“Twenty-three times,” she whispered, staring at me. “They killed me twenty-three times.”
“Nonsense,” I exclaimed.
“We grew old together in those corridors and rooms.”
“I was there for nine months.”
“We were there for thirty years, Rory,” she said. “We were there together for thirty years.”
“Nonsense, I was 27 yesterday.”
“You are 57 years old.”
I could only stare at her blankly at this and she stared back smiling, and slowly, her form started to fade away. A minute later, she was gone completely, but I remained sitting there.
Sometime later, my phone rang, and when I picked it up, someone from the other side asked me if I was taking my medicines on time.
“You will start to hallucinate her again, Mr. Dutta, if you skip the pills,” said the voice.
“I understand,” I said.
“You had a tough run, sir,” she said. “You would not like to see her again. She will only ruin things for you. Please let us know if you need anything.”
“I will,” I said and hung up.
I sat on the chair next to the phone, which was opposite to a mirror, and now, as I looked into the mirror, I could see, my hair was as grey as Megha’s and my skin was full of wrinkles. My eyes had sunk and my cheeks had started to hang. I was an old man.
On the table before me, there was a bottle of water and a pile of pills I needed to take that would help me not see Megha again for some time. I took some water in my mouth and a pill in my palm, but then paused, for I didn’t want to let Megha go. I loved her. The world wasn’t the right place without her. I drank the water and threw the pill away.
That night, as I was on my bed, Megha was right next to me, caressing my hair. I whispered to her: “Stay.”
“Always,” she whispered back.