The speed of my laptop equalled a snail’s crawl, clicked on computer icon on my desktop screen and sure enough, both my C and D drive were almost full. I cursed myself for dumping all the videos and photos I came across on Facebook feeds onto my computer. I opened the folder “FB_Favs” and started deleting all those files I thought were “less” favourites. I reached the last video which I was sure I didn’t want to delete. So, closed the folder and returned to “Computer” icon to see that the Drive was still almost full. I cursed myself again and opened the “Pics_To_remember” folder and saw the subfolder “1aaaa” I didn’t remember storing anything as such because I always give descriptive names to my folders! Curiously I opened the folder to see a single picture. I clicked on it to see that it was a picture of me and Achala, my old roommate, both of us happily waving at the camera. The picture was taken when both of us were still on speaking terms. We had fallen apart. What annoyed me was that I had deleted all the pictures related to her. I was sure I had deleted this pic as well. How did it end up here?

“Weren’t our lives simple before he came along in your life?” I heard a voice behind me; I turned around, startled to see no one. I thought the voice sounded exactly like hers bringing a feeling of Deja vu. I was still thinking about what had just occurred when I was startled again “Honey, I am hungry.” I laughed at my silliness because that was my husband Ritesh shouting from down the hall, probably with his eyes still glued on to the TV. “I will be down in a moment dear” I called back from our study. Just before closing the screen of my laptop I deleted the folder and went down to the kitchen.

I knew she didn’t like Ritesh, but I was totally in love with him. She had tried all possible ways to discourage me from seeing him. I had brushed off her warnings because I knew she was being worried beyond reason and at the same time I was happy that I had a friend who cared for me.

But what she did on that day was objectionable. Though it was against the policies of our company we knew each other’s password to our systems, being best of friends and all. That particular day, the office communicator software (that enables us to kind of PM each other) had been mysteriously uninstalled from my desktop, I had raised a request to the technical department to reinstall it but in the meantime, I and Ritesh were exchanging our messages through emails.

I don’t know when she did it but she had forwarded those emails to my father. That night my father called me and well… there was a big drama. I immediately knew that only one person in the whole world could have done that. When I confronted her, she started answering rudely as if I was accusing her of something she didn’t do and in the middle of the conversation, a doubt flickered into my mind and I blurted out “Are you jealous of me Achala?”

She had laughed rudely and had answered “Jealous of what? Jealous of you being with that idiot, who is a total jerk?”

I had slapped her. Slapped her right there in the middle of a food court, the anger in those eyes of her had made me think that she was going to slap me back but instead, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and spoke between clenched teeth with folded hands, “You will pay for this.” And she had simply walked out of the food court without another word.

Ritesh looked lovingly at the mutter-Paneer I had served him. It was his favourite. He looked at me fondly and I couldn’t help but smile. But as soon as he had his first bite he started coughing, I rushed to his side, poured water into a glass and forced it into his hands. He gulped down the whole glass, without pause and indicated for more, while I poured him another glass of water, between taking heavy breaths through his mouth he asked: “What happened honey, why did you make the curry so spicy?” When I tasted the curry, sure enough, it was very spicy. I remembered the other time this had happened.

After the incident in the food court, Achala and I had stayed in the same apartment we had rented together for another month and she had made my life hell through that month.

She would find sneaky ways to put large amounts of salt or chilli powder into my curries or turn on the volume of music system or TV very high when she knew that I was on the phone with him or once she had even burnt my Salwar that Ritesh had presented me on our second date.

When I confronted her about these she used to always say that she hadn’t done any of those things. She would arrogantly say that I was blaming her for things that she didn’t do.

I was lost in deep thought when I heard Ritesh say “So, Honey? What have you thought about giving a break to your writing?”

This had been the topic of discussion between us for the past week; tears welled up in my eyes “but Ritesh I love to write!”

“I know that dear, but I can’t see you break down each time your story is rejected from a publishing house.”

Oh! Was that really the reason? He knew that whenever I had writers block I used to take a stroll in a park near his office or sit and relax in his favourite restaurant. Twice, I had seen him with a lady, laughing loudly at something. He had seen me observing this. At that time, I had brushed it off knowing that his work required him to interact with both genders but now as I thought of it “was it only that? “

“All I am saying is give it a break for some time. You can take it up again when you feel like you are absolutely ready for it.”

But nothing he said was getting into my head.

“You asked me to give up wearing jeans, I gave up. You asked me to give up my dream job, I did and now you want me to give up my passion! How many more things should I sacrifice to make you happy Ritesh?” Anger flared in me.

He put out his hands defensively “Honey, Jeans and tees always gave you rashes; working in the same company I knew how stressful the work can be. I just wanted you to be safe and happy.”

No, he was just trying to manipulate me “You don’t love me anymore!” saying this I stormed out of the dining hall up the staircase into the study and shut the door with a snap.

I pulled my laptop furiously and opened the screen typed in the password. When I was thinking furiously about what to do next, I saw the photo of Achala and me, staring back at me on my screen. Hadn’t I deleted it?

I heard a knock on the door “Honey, please I am sorry. Open the door.”

My anger flared to new heights, I shouted: “Leave me alone!” I heard him sigh and leave. He knew exactly what to do. I turned furiously to my laptop. Clicked on the close button of the photo viewer with more force than needed and with the same force pressed on the shift+delete buttons  and clicked on Ok on the pop-up message without bothering to read the confirmation of whether I wanted to delete the file permanently.

I pulled up the word processor and started typing furiously. As I typed, my anger started to ebb and realized what Ritesh was saying. I cursed myself for being such a drama queen and got up to go and apologise to him.

He always understood me very well, I knew him very well and this mutual understanding was the reason for our happy married life. I knew he would still be waiting in the dining hall for me to come to my senses. When I entered the dining hall, sure enough, I could see his back on the chair, fallen asleep on the dining table. I laughed and tried to wake him up by calling his name. He didn’t respond to my calls. When I lifted his head and pulled him back onto the chair, my breath was caught in my chest and that was when I caught a flicker of movement on the verge of my eyes, when I turned around, there she stood with a bloody knife in her hand, wiping it on the kitchen napkins, sneering at me, fulfilling the definition of “A devil on earth.” As soon as our eyes met, she started walking towards me and I backed towards the stairs.

She started to speak “I had warned you. He was manipulative, a total jerk. But you wouldn’t listen. I wanted to kill him the first time I knew he was the manipulative kind. But I just waited for you to come to your senses and realize the truth that he didn’t love you. Today you did.”

She turned towards my husband and my foot touched the first step of the stairs “Anyways, he is dead now. Our lives will be as simple as they were before he came into your life.” She turned back to look at me and I saw the gleam of dirty wickedness in her eyes. I turned and ran up the stairs; I heard her closing behind me. I dashed into our bedroom and bolted the door. A heavy knot had formed in my chest, my hands came away wet from the tears rolling down my cheeks and with the stains of blood of my husband, could hear the sound of my sobs but I was too numb to feel any of it. I staggered to the side of my bed and fell down on my knees.

The next thing I knew was the police kicking down my door. I should have probably called them for I saw my husband’s cell phone beside me on the ground.

They say I killed him, killed him with my own hands.

They have locked me up in a mental institution; they think I have a Dissociative identity disorder. But I know full well that I am perfectly alright and now I know the meaning of her words “You will pay for this.” She made me pay – by ruining my life. She has everybody believing that I am the murderer of my own husband, whom I loved more than my own life.

In fact, there are times when I think maybe what they say is true. I sometimes think that maybe she didn’t really do the things that I accused her of doing. Maybe it was I who had been forgetful and added that extra salt or chilli powder into my curries. Maybe it was I who had turned the volume high because I had a fight with Ritesh on that day and didn’t want to speak to him. Maybe it was I who had burned that salwar because he had asked me not to wear Jeans anymore. But no, I am sure these are the very thoughts she wants me to have and I know the truth from a lie. When I am out of here, I looked around at the gloomy walls around me and nodded to myself; I will hunt her down and make “her” pay.

“Really?” I turned to see Achala sitting on the steel railing of my bed with her feet on the bed, rocking back and forth with a sneer on her face like she always did when she was happy. “My dear, how will you make me pay when you have already killed me?”

The next thing I remember is that I was shrieking at her and they were pulling me, trying to restrain me and the last thing I remember before passing out is an excruciating pain through my body and her devilish sneer behind the doctor.

*******The end*************