Rest till Death
“He is slowly advancing towards Jay. His right eye is bleeding while the left twitching. His laughter is piercing my ears. I lie tied to the only chair that is surviving. Jay is unable to move but he is wailing. Again there is a roar of thunderous laughter and the knife is thrust into Jay’s abdomen.”
Silence....a long one. The dimly lit room waits for further revelations.
Dr.Dasgupta intervenes, “Sudha, come on tell us who that man is, whose laughter is piercing your ears?”
“Can’t see. I’m tied behind him,” she replies non-chalantly.
“Try to go back a little. The moment you both had been taken to that place.” Dr.Dasgupta speaks agitatedly while looking into the eyes of the spectators.
A dreaded silence. Sudha dozes off.
***
The courtroom rises as Justice Abhyankar enters. The proceedings begin.
“My Lord, it is clear that though my client Mrs.Joshi was present at the crime site, she doesn’t recall a thing.” Argues Adv. Mishra defending Sudha sitting within the box. She is cold and rigid like a frozen glacier. Nothing oozes out of her in the heated battle of Jay’s murder case. She is the lone witness to it but has gone mute post seeing the bloodshed.
“The court is being misguided, My Lord.” Public Prosecutor Adv. Sinha steps in. “I would like to call Dr. Dasgupta, the prominent shrink who is treating the witness for Post Traumatic Disorder.”
Dr.Dasgupta, escorted by the bailiff, enters the witness stand.
“So doctor, would you please throw light on my client’s medical condition?” Adv.Mishra begins the questioning.
“Mrs.Sudha Joshi was brought to my clinic a month after she had stopped responding to various stimuli in her surroundings. This had happened post the death of her beloved son Jay.” Dr.Dasgupta searches for signs of anguish in Sudha’s vacant eyes. Nothing. Absolutely barren even on mention of Jay.
“She is being treated with hypnosis to unearth the truth following medicines failed to show effect. During few of her sleepy interrogations, she has managed to reveal about a man who is murdering her son while she is tied to a chair behind him.” Dr.Dasgupta squeezes the railing on remembering how first time his inadequacies have surfaced leading to a non-progressive therapy. The case is stuck like a jammed wheel which refuses adamantly to roll further.
***
There is no bloodshed, only a restil overdose, so that she can rest for a while whereas he a lifetime. She is tired of raising a 30yr old mentally and physically crippled adult in the name of son. All this comes to her very often in the empty prison cell which is symbolic of her state.
Her only visitor these days is Dr.Dasgupta who in his zest to prove his hypnosis right had proved a mother wrong. Now she only pleads to him to lock her memories forever or free her soul with the same drug overdose. The memory lane must be vacant like her life.
References: Restil is a drug prescribed for insomania and hyperactive adults, available only on doctor’s prescription. Its overdose causing death is a fictional take.
[ratemypost]
Penmancy gets a small share of every purchase you make through these links, and every little helps us continue bringing you the reads you love!