The Villain of Her Life

The Villain of Her Life – Psychological Short Story
Photo credit: cohdra from morguefile.com

Ruma came awake with her heart pounding. She heard Suman calling her from below. She got up, pushed her hair away from her face and came out of the bedroom. She started climbing down slowly, looking at each step. She wanted to avoid that fatal fall which might have been planned. Her glance fell on the living Hall, displaying class and majesty in its interior decoration. She did everything – every little object found there was her choice; it was all her planning, to the minute detail.

It was her house, her parental home, where she was born and grew up. She knew every corner of the house, even the minute cracks on the floor or the spots on the walls which defied painting, sometimes. The house was her father’s wedding gift to them. She pleaded with him not to leave the house, which he had built with so much of love. But her parents promised that they would visit her often.

She redid the house aesthetically to suit the modern living without compromising on the ethnic charm with which it was made. She looked at the lamp shade colouring the living room in a mysterious hue, and it had been hand painted by her. She stared at the corner indoor plants kept adding life to her living room, and heard Suman again.

“Ruma, are you OK? Want to have some tea? See what I have got for you.”

“Are you OK?” – She murmured. “Why? What’s wrong with me?” She thought. “He’s making me feel I’m an invalid and giving me tablets from time to time, God knows for what.”

She resisted nowadays. Tablets made her feel sick. He started giving them when she had a cold, a few months back, and had not stopped since then….

I am not someone who has an incurable, fatal disease,” she said with irritation.

“Who said so? I thought I would give you a surprise on our second wedding anniversary,” he extended a box, containing large heart shaped chocolates, obviously containing a alot of nuts, which she so loved and couldn’t resist even for a moment. But now she just looked on. She hated when he was excessively kind. She knew what he was planning and was only waiting for his time, and he knew that she knew.

“With whose money have you bought this?” she said viciously and he looked hurt.

Of course it was all her father’s money, which he had earned all by himself, through Verma Corporation, his own brainchild. Now it was all hers, as her parents are no more – that terrible accident took them away from her. Or was it an accident, really? They say the brake of the car in which they had left, after visiting her, was dislodged, when it was examined later on.

She looked at Suman from the corner of her eye. How happy she was those first few months of their marriage! Even her most evil imaginations would not have given a picture of him being so cunning and manipulative, then.

Now all his hypocritical gestures of affection stirred her anger…

He sat near her on the floor and took her hand in his and placed a chocolate on it. She cringed from his touch and sat with the chocolate in her hand for some time.

He said,”Eat it , dear, you like it. You have not eaten anything from morning.”

She took it to her mouth and took a bite from it as it was too large to eat in one go. The taste and her unnoticed hunger made her take another bite and another….

She felt a darkness engulfing her… She tried to open her eyes but the eyelids wouldn’t comply with her will. She shuddered involuntarily, looking at the hand painting in the lamp shade, that threw eerie shades on the wall, and demanded,

“What did you mix in the chocolate?” He was smiling….

Ruma opened her eyes and saw a white coated man, yes, the doctor talking to a middle aged couple near her. the lady was standing close to Ruma and crying her heart out. The man also had tears in his eyes.

“Doctor, will she ever become alright? This time she is not even able to recognize us. God knows why she suspects Suman and torments him! What’s wrong with our daughter?

It is Suman who has given her a home, a life of luxury, which never would have been possible for us to give her, even in our dreams, considering our poverty ridden life!”

“Mr. and Mrs. Verma, please, calm yourseves. With the right kind of medication and the kind of care your son-in-law gives, Mrs. Ruma is going to be alright. There isn’t much of awareness among people on paranoid schizophrenia, unfortunately. Earlier detection would be more helpful for the patient, indeed.

As parents of Mrs. Ruma, you should have noted the symptoms of her disorder, her disorientation, her estrangement from reality, soon after she miscarried. But don’t worry. Your daughter is going to be alright. You know, your son-in-law has even found a way of giving her medicines – embedded in her favourite chocolate, ……mmm….. You be supportive to him. That’s the best you can do.”

Ruma shut her ears totally even to the faint sound of their talk…… because she saw Suman there, coming forward and consoling the crying lady and her husband. “Don’t worry, Ma, my true love for her will win and I shall show you the same Ruma you gave me!”

The hypocrite, the villain! Can’t anyone understand that he had committed two murders, – murders of her father and her mother, and was planning to commit one more, in order to lay his hands freely on her parents’ money?

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