Shape of the Sun

Culpable

Rajkumar wanted to sleep dead to the world. 

What was once a fixation had grown into a necessity, engineered in part by an early Zoom meeting with the hospital director in London and Preeta dialing in. The meeting had turned out so well that Rajkumar thought there was no other way to celebrate. He placed his phone in the topmost drawer of his nightstand.

But that was soon switched to the bottom one. It was the calls.

His phone had been ringing non-stop. They never made it easy to sleep dead to the world.

Rajkumar could just have taken it out and checked for whoever was calling but there was a certain grumpiness that came with being overworked and underslept well into the afternoon. He had dark circles under his eyes. Goodness. He had dark circles under his pretty eyes. Rajkumar only had one question in mind. Could the world just go turn on its head, away from him? He'd appreciate it, thank you very much.

Unfortunately, it was not to be.

The sound of his lover's hurried footsteps had him asking her questions with his eyes from across the room. Manmeet was such a trembling mess that it bothered him.

"Have you seen the news?" she asked this question, waving her phone in hand.

Rajkumar frowned at her gesture, the very act irritating something deep within.

"What news?"

He sat up and retrieved his phone from the drawer, the screen dense with a barrage of notifications of calls, texts, and voicemails. Fateh, who was in Germany, had called him a record sixteen times. It irritated him a bit more. 

Rajkumar dialed his father's number as directed by a text to do so once he had seen the missed call. Papaji had called five times in succession and no more in the morning. He had been on the Zoom call then.

"Raj, just calm down, okay?"

"What do you mean that I should calm down?" Papaji wasn't picking up his call and it pissed him off. He navigated over to the text app.

Manmeet had come over and taken up the space beside him, a hand gently massaging his arm. It took a lot for him not to pull away because of the sudden ominosity looming over him. Charcoal eyes darted past texts that asked how he was and told him to calm down. The more he saw, the more it bothered him that there was something that he didn't know.

That was until a text from Papaji came in. It was in his usual succinct style with an underlying that made Rajkumar uneasy. The text was only three words.

News. Tv. Choti.

That was all it took for Rajkumar to get off the bed and out of the room, leaving Manmeet's grip in the process. She quickly followed and while he could hear her say something, her words all went over his head. All that Rajkumar could see was the remote on the table. He scrambled for it and turned on the TV, heading for the news channel section.

It was his family love affair, and literally. His sister was the celebrant but with no cake. There were only knives.

Priyanka Reddy ran off with her lover. Priyanka Reddy deserved what she got. Priyanka Reddy got scammed in an adultery attempt. Priyanka Reddy is a bad role model for all women out there.

They were obsessed with Choti from nowhere, so much that it sickened him to the core. There was something frightening and yet not, nauseating and yet not, about watching these hoodlums, under the guise of the press hound the mansion and the hospital's exterior. They kept taking such inconsiderate pictures of his parents as if they could not see how stressed their faces were. He was so far away, yet he could see. 

Why could they not?

"Take it easy, Raj."

Manmeet had held his arm, preventing a fall. His legs felt wobbly, likely due to the stress overload from the images on the screen, from the voiceover that felt tart to his ears. She guided him gently to the sofa.

"Rajkumar, it's going to be fine. This is all a mistake, okay? Uncle and aunt must be taking care of things."

"What if it's not, Manmeet?"

"Raj..."

"Something's wrong with my sister. I can feel it." he pointed to the left side of his chest, "I can feel it hurt in here."

"Oh, sweetheart..." She cupped his face so that some of his tears spilled onto her hands, precious. Her heart broke just seeing him like this.

Rajkumar was crying loudly now, his body racked by the upheaval, by the weight of despondency. It wasn't something that anyone could understand just by looking, a story that he had tried to escape from. It hurt that Choti was going through something so painful. Even worse, it hurt that he had a hand in this.

If he had known, he would never have told her that it was okay. He would never have looked the other way.

Because now, all he could think of were the words. I did this to her. I am to blame.

Oh, Choti. 

Rajkumar let his lover comfort him a little bit more, a little while longer.