The phone kept ringing, one call after another but he didn’t answer. Nor that he didn’t want to speak but he couldn’t bring himself to pick it. After last night showdown, the familiar number spelled trouble for him. And he had a good excuse to convince himself too, “I am in the midst of a meeting.” The fact that it was a regular weekly meet where he could have easily excused himself and taken the call was an option he often chose in truce times, but not today.
She prayed, “Please God, let him take the call.” She kept trying and trying till her consciousness lasted and then everything went dark. Too dark to recover and too quiet for the mind to interfere. All she felt was odd, cold hands picking her up and taking her away, maybe far. She could hardly tell because she was too new to the place.
He wanted to call her back after the meeting but something stopped him. Then one task, after another made him forget her. Finally when he did remember, it was time to go back home. Time to go back to her and time to pick up from where they left last night.
The moment he turned the house key, he felt something wasn’t right. Everything was kept at its usual place. But she was missing. He looked everywhere and couldn’t find her. Her phone was missing too. That moment too he wanted to call her, but he dismissed the idea. Though he could read the unusually high number of times she had tried to get in touch with him during the day. “Must be trying to patch up, let me just ignore for some time, “he assured himself. To top it, the peace in his apartment without her presence was too tempting for him. Had been a while that he got all the time to himself. Ever since she had come, she had never left him alone. He was enjoying the solitude and started playing his favourite video game.
Time flew at a fast pace and when he looked at the wall-clock, it was past 9. Suddenly the clouds of worries appeared in his mind. He brought the phone from his charging point and was about to call when another call from a friend diverted him. The call went long and by the time it ended, he got tired and went for another session with the game, he recently bought. The next time he looked it was past 10.30 and he panicked.
Immediately, he dialled the all familiar number. It rang and was picked up by an unfamiliar male voice. He repeated the dialled number and asked for his wife. The voice said, “We have been trying to call you since a long time without any success. The woman carrying this phone has been hit in the afternoon…”
His world fell apart and nothing made sense after that…
