Short Story of Girl – The tree
© Anand Vishnu Prakash, YourStoryClub.com
“I cant tell you……i am sorry but there is nothing you can do to help me.”
Her eyes were distant as usual.Still gazing out of her window (as she usually did whenever I asked her about her illness.). Her gaze was fixed at tree as if someone is sitting on the branches and giving her instructions about what she has to say next.
“Priya….”I said in my calm professional voice, keeping my hand over hers. I scolded myself, no need to get personal, after all i am just her doctor.
“Why do you keep seeing outside, my dear?” Oops, i guess a wrong question to ask…..because hearing that she lost all her senses. Her red angry eyes burning with tears looked at me and I realized that it is time to put our meeting to an end.
“YOU B**CH!!! Go away…..or I’ll kill you just like you killed your daughter!!”
She plunged me and got over me, beating her hard fists into my face. The ward boy and my assistant nurse came to my rescue getting her off me. They made her sit on the bed and my assistant gave her the daily injection,putting her to sleep.
I was shaken. Not because she physically hurt me real hard on my face but….but because the fact that she knew that I am responsible for my daughter’s death. I sighed and finally got up off the floor. Saying a polite hello to Mr. Agnihotri, I marched out of their house.
****
Priya Agnihotri… she has been my patient since the past three years. Sometimes she was just like another normal person but sometimes she was so violent that it became difficult for two fully grown men to hold back this little eighteen year old. When she was fifteen years of age, her mother hanged herself from the tree she always gazes upon. Whenever I come to her house and saw her looking at the tree transfixed, it creeped me out it still does. I have suggested her father a number of times that she must be admitted to our hospital but he isn’t ready.
But what she said today? What should I even make of that?
How can she know anything about me which i have never told her or to any other soul? That I was responsible for her death.The evening I got my ultrasound the doctor said that my child will be born with sickle cell anemia. That moment I decided to get an abortion. I didn’t want her to suffer like her uncle did. I had a brother with this disease. Even though my parents were able to get him into one of the best hospitals across the country,he only saw pain in his short lifespan of 11 years. After his passing away, my parents were devastated. I know that a person with this disease no matter what facilities given, cant survive for long. I didnt want the same fate for me and my husband like my parents…. So I aborted our child…I killed her.I know what i did was wrong but this was the only option i could see in front of me….Since that day I have never been able to get a single night of full sleep.
How can Priya know anything about it? I have to find out..
****
But the next day I went to her house, the scenario was not at all what i had expected… Every one dressed in white clothes,was silently sitting inside the house. And there lay Priya’s body. Her eyes closed and it was the first time I have ever seen her so peaceful. I went to console Mr. Agnihotri when I got to know that she hung herself from that tree.
__END__
