The Rain: Chapter 1: Tragedy

It seemed as if the rain would never stop, as if crying for Vijay. He had told himself, this was the only way almost a thousand times, but those feelings of self doubt were still there. As he sat in his car looking through its windshield at ‘Jagdish Manor’. “Had it really come to this?”, he thought. If there was just some more time, he would have found a way. It didn’t matter now, there was not time to sit and think anymore. He rubbed his hands, took a deep breath, and prayed for Aarti. He clenched and relaxed his grip a few times, before running them over the old hand gun that lay on the seat next to him. The steel was cold, just like he had to be.

As the rain drops first touched his face, and made him feel alive; his mind raced back to the time when it all started. He was seated in a leather chair, tapping on the mahogany desk, listening to a flute in his humble but impressive office. The track had just ended when the phone rang, he picked it up. He expected the call to be from his dealers, only it wasn’t. It was from the hospital, his sister Aarti had been in an accident. It was serious, he was needed urgently, and he had ran. 

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In that icy cold rain, that tried to quench his inner fire; and that infernal noise that tried to plug the silence within him, Vijay remembered. He remembered how he had ran across the corridors of the hospital, looking into every room expecting to find his sister. Asking the nurse at the desk would have made more sense, but nothing made sense when Aarti was hurt. He finally found her on the 3rd floor, quiet, sleeping, breathing rhythmically, as if nothing had happened. Only it had, her forehead was completely covered in bandages, her left arm ripped and bandaged too, she had a breathing apparatus on. Vijay was almost relieved that her sister was asleep, this would have been too much for her beautiful Aarti.

He wanted to sit alongside her and watch her heal, but he was needed elsewhere. As he signed paperwork, charge sheets and checks in the doctor’s office. The doctor explained to him Aarti’s condition, like he was giving a presentation, with X-Rays and CAT scans all light up. Vijay was no medical expert, but he got the gist. Aarti was suffering from Brain hemorrhage and severe internal bleeding. She needed not one but a series of operation, and that too swiftly, the doctor emphasized on swiftly.

The doctor also emphasized that this could only be done with Vijay’s consent. The operations were not a cheap affair, each one costlier than the one before. The doctor had seen families abandon loved ones, purely on commerce, he wanted to know if Vijay would do the same. The question was simple, “Should We Operate”, the answer was simpler, “Yes”

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The Rain is a 4 part short story that I had written while I was in school, if you liked it, please suggest a name for this chapter, and be sure to check out the next chapter soon. You can check out the other parts here:
Chapter 2: Cold
Chapter 3: Gun
Chapter 4: Time