Perfect Strangers

The darkness of the night hid the shadows, but what about the shadows of the heart? Nothing and no one could hide them or hide from them. They emerged the strongest when the night was at its darkest.

His dad had called and asked him to come home a bit early tonight. The man who has never asked him for anything, had for the first time ever asked him to come home early. And how had he responded? “I’ll try dad”!

Grief and helplessness washed anew over Zen Kohli.

If only he had taken that phone call seriously and gone home when his dad had asked him to, then all this…

His thoughts choked up at that.

Even though the frantic activity surrounding his dad had stopped to an occasional murmur, the constant beeping of the innumerable machines in the room didn’t let him forget that this was a hospital and that his dad was battling for his life inside.

He had only just managed to send his mom and grandmom home before his rigid control on his emotions snapped and he collapsed against the wall of the corridor like a puppet disengaged from its strings!

His dad was his life string! The ever smiling and laughing person, currently lying deathly pale inside the ICU was his backbone, his identity, his very foundation!

Without him, Zen Kohli had nothing! Without him, Zen Kohli was nothing!

Zen was about to explode from the onslaught of emotions when he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder.

Looking up, he found a beautiful girl looking at him owlishly from behind a pair of rimless glasses.

She didn’t say anything, just stared at him wordlessly.

Once he felt a bit in control of himself, he noticed that the girl’s eyes and nose were slightly red, like in the recent past, she too had lost the battle against her overwhelming emotions.

Before he could think of saying anything to her, she patted his shoulder, turned and left him sitting on the floor, staring unblinkingly at her departing back.

Only when she rounded the corner and went out of his sight did Zen come back to himself.

He understood that the girl, whoever she was, was a fellow compatriot in grief. He would be forever grateful to her for her compassion just then.

He would have broken apart, if not for her damming the tide just at the right moment. She had forgone her grief, to help sooth a complete stranger.

This kindness, he will remember forever.

Feeling a bit more settled than before, he decided to first find out what exactly happened tonight that led to his sprightly dad suddenly suffering a heart attack. And then, then he will give his emotions full reign.

But before that, he had things to do!

Turning away, Zen took the phone out of his pocket. His mind now was crystal clear. Something or someone had tried to hurt his family and no one, absolutely no one was allowed to do that!

Whoever was responsible for putting his dad and his family in this situation should better start praying, because retribution is on its way. And it will not be swift, but painful and heavy!

The moment she rounded the corner, Zoe collapsed against the nearest wall. What had made her do this; console a perfect stranger, when she herself was hanging by a thread here?

But she couldn’t have ignored the waves of pain coming off him even if she had tried. Her hand had automatically lifted to help relieve his suffering.

She guessed this was an aftereffect of being raised by a kind woman, who had not a harsh word to say for anyone, not even for those who have made her suffer.

A gentle woman, who had given space in her heart and her home to two abandoned orphans from the family that had cheated her out of not only her happiness but her money too.

But she had never taken out the anger or frustration of the situation on them, two defenseless children themselves. She had dusted off the useless emotions and people from her life and determinedly moved forward.

She had built a home and a life for the children and herself. Raised the brats with all the love and care in the world. Made them who they are today; successful, strong, independent, and knowing who to stand tall against and whom to bow down to.

Somehow though, bringing that stranger back from the brink of desperation had helped her internal tsunami to settle down as well. The darkness threatening to engulf her was pushed back into the light.

She now knew what she had to do.

It was time to make those responsible for her mom’s condition to pay. It was time they were made to account for all their past and present transgressions against her mom.

She could have forgiven them if they had acted against her, but by hurting her mom, they had crossed her bottom line.

Those people needed to bleed every ounce of blood and tears that she and her family has shed, because of them!

They needed to understand what pain and suffering was.

They had dared to rock her world, there is nothing that she wouldn’t dare now to rock theirs!

And she had to call her little brother and let him know about mom too. If he found out any later there’ll be hell to pay.

For him, there was no one above mom. Knowing she has been hurt would pain him greatly, but knowing that she had been hurt by those people from our past, would devastate him more.

Knowing that things, events, and people that we had long forgotten, that we had thought had forgotten us, had reared its ugly head once again and intruded into our present and that too in such a manner, will shock him greatly.

Zoe was still angry at herself for not being with her mom when she inadvertently ran into Carina Mahanta, one of the banes of their previous lives.

The cruel narcissist, who blamed the world for her actions and who had hated mom for being a competent and independent woman, while she herself was living off her own mother’s fame, status, money, and name, had left no stone unturned to make their lives miserable back then.

If Zoe had been there with mom as previously planned, if she had not been late, she might have been able to protect her mom, who then wouldn’t be here; lying on a hospital bed, dependent on machines to keep her heart beating.

But this matter had cleared one thing for her at least. The illusion that their family had been living in until now had finally shattered.

The Mahanta family didn’t deserve to be buried in the attics of the past. They needed to be dug out and made to pay for each and every crime of theirs.

The fame and fortune that they had so ruthlessly built on her family’s pain and suffering needed to be teared down.

Their atrocities needed to be paid back in full, with some added interest.

Zoe just hoped that her little brother would not take his usual ‘forgive and forget’ approach, because this time she just wouldn’t!

Resolutely, she went forward to make some calls, she had things to do, a past to reckon, and some justice to deliver!