The Green Fields

Chapter 2

“Fridays are the worst.”

Armaan was still muttering curses as he climbed the stairs to his apartment. It was almost nine and he was outright irritated. He hated the unplanned extra hours. He hated the arrogant authority with which his superiors commanded the work out of him. Most of all, he hated the helplessness of his situation. His self complains didn’t stop as he opened the door and entered.

Removing his shoes, he came into the hall. The fan was on at its full speed and Ankita was sprawled out on the sofa. She was fast asleep. The T.V. was on too. Its remote lay on the ground just beneath her hanging fingers. A blanket lay wrapped around her legs. Armaan exhaled and kept the bag silently on top of the table in front of her. She’s been home for quite some time, he thought. Untangling the bedsheet from underneath her, he covered her with it. She moved for a bit, easing up into the comfortable warmth of the blanket. Armaan picked up his bag and went into the bedroom.

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It was two at night and he was still awake. He tossed and turned but sleep evaded him. He checked the time on his phone and sat up. Beside him, Ankita was sleeping soundlessly. Her body rose and fell gently with each breath she took. He kept looking at her for sometime before turning his eyes away. He got out of the bed and walked out of the bedroom. Going into the kitchen he opened the fridge, took out a bottle and gulped down almost half of its cold content. Then he came out.

He stood still for a moment in the darkness of the drawing room wondering whether he should try the couch, then deciding against it went back into the bedroom. He got into bed, as slowly as he had got out, not wanting to wake his dreaming wife. He lay down on his back, head resting atop both his hand and closed his eyes. Darkness engulfed his senses. His body was tired but his mind wasn’t. It refused to go to rest, springing from one thought to the next, aimlessly.

Armaan wasn’t an insomniac. On the contrary, he was considered as the most sound and heavy sleeper in the family. ‘You sleep like a log’, even Ankita had exclaimed once. But none of it mattered that night. He was as wide awake as an owl while the rest of the world dozed away in a peaceful slumber. He wanted his peace too.  His hours of relaxation slipped by while he lay helplessly awake. The thought thoroughly disturbed him.

There was something that was bothering him, he decided. But he couldn’t figure it out and it made him more restless. More awake. He tried counting sheep, as he had seen people do in the movies but it didn’t work for him. It’s stupid, his impatient mind shouted out to him. So instead, he began to go through his entire day in his head. From the morning when he woke up, left for his office, greeted his colleagues, started working, the five minute ‘stick-break’ that he took with his co-workers, even though he didn’t smoke, participating in the office gossips, going back to work, the lunch break, the cafeteria, the television over the counter-. Then it hit him.

He had been thinking about it after lunch, up until the time the boss announced the extra work load for the day. His Friday had just gotten longer and that took his mind off the thing. And it eventually got sidetracked. But, lying there in the darkness, he remembered it. The interview on the news channel.

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He remembered it clearly. He was chewing at a chicken sandwich when his eyes found the colour screen. He was sitting closest to the counter, so the volume was loud enough for him to hear. Two men sat on the screen. The table in front of them had a book and two cups which probably went unattended throughout the show as the men chatted away. One was the reporter. A young guy, probably in his late twenties and not a junior journalist, as he wore a suit and not just a crisp shirt with a tie. Also, he was on screen and not off it. The other was a doctor. A psychiatrist of sort, Armaan deduced, evident from the way he talked. Their topic of discussion, as displayed brightly at the bottom of the screen, was- ‘The Green Fields – Theoretical Practicality or just Practical Theory’. A row of telephone numbers scrolled by just below it. It was the name that had caught his eye.