Unhinged: First Two Chapters

For mature audiences only. This story includes several triggering themes including murder, suicide, infidelity, rape, minor abuse, etc. Please do not read if you are likely to be affected by such themes.

Unhinged is the second and final novella in the Based on Lies series and Based on Lies: A Sinister Psychological Thriller is now also available as a combined book.

©This work is protected by copyright and copying or reproduction in any form, in part or in full, without the express permission of the copyright holder is strictly prohibited.

When I first met Anurag, I didn’t expect to have the conversation that we had. Rather, I didn’t believe in hearing the story that I was told. But then again, given what Aditi had told me about Anurag leading up to this conversation, I probably shouldn’t have been as quite as dumbfounded.

“Anurag is dead.

“There was an eerie familiarity to his death with the way that his parents died. The red Maruti 800 car was found flattened against a banyan tree growing on the sidewalks in the middle of nowhere. The left door smashed further in than it originally was. There was a smell of petrol leaking from the fuel tank, but there was no sign of fire when people noticed that car. Apart from that left door, the car seemed alright. It could, perhaps, have provided a reliable ride to another generation of the Sanyals. But Anurag is dead.

“He wasn’t able to complete the journey he set out on. He never made it to Mumbai. The car had kept him company for almost a hundred-odd kilometers before he lost control of it. He steered the old thing too hard until it flew off the flyover and crash-landed against the banyan tree. Anurag never got to find himself, like he wanted. And he never got to make that fresh start with Niharika. And somewhat suspiciously, even Niharika never came looking for him again.

“When the car crashed, a few passers-by motorcyclists were brought to a halt. They all gathered around, but not one of them dared to venture within twenty feet of the crash site. Some felt that an explosion was imminent, so they kept their distance. Others wanted to wait for someone else to figure out what’s what, and tell them the story.

“The motorcyclists waited around for about twenty minutes before a police van arrived. Of the dozen motorcyclists who flocked the scene at first, five, perhaps six, had lingered around until the police arrived. After the police arrived the fire brigade. They inspected the area for fifteen good minutes before confirming that an explosion was unlikely. The ambulance arrived another half hour after the fire brigade gave their clearance. As the paramedics gradually rescued Anurag’s body and brought it out of the car, a handful of onlookers stood patiently around, trying to process the shock of the carnage etched across Anurag’s face.

“Nobody really noticed the old scar cutting across Anurag’s right eye anymore. It was too meek in comparison to the disfigurement that the rest of his face had suffered. Thick droplets of dark red blood kept oozing from that old cut on his face. Passersby perhaps felt that that was also a part of the injuries he suffered during the car crash.

“His lower lip was cut in half, probably from the sudden impact on a hard surface that was the steering wheel. The left part of that lip clung tightly in its home base, but the right half kept hanging down, succumbing to the force of gravity, bled dry, and turned almost purple. Behind the hanging lower lip, you could see that he had lost several teeth and was bleeding through the gums, which provided further evidence of hard impact.

“Blood was still gushing down from the insides of both of his ears, but they were spared any significant mutilation. His eyes, although closed shut, turned as purple as his half hanging lip. Perhaps as his brain processed those final moments of impact, it decided it was best not to let the eyes witness this horror.

“Anurag had worn his favorite white shirt and blue denim pants when he left home that day. Such a waste of a perfect white shirt! When the paramedics finally hauled his body out of the battered car, his white shirt was smeared red with bloodstains. The paramedics mustn’t have been able to tell that that was once a sharp, white shirt. The blood all over Anurag had been drying for a while and had turned almost black. His denim pants had stains of dried-up blood as well.

“As the paramedics were wheeling Anurag onto the ambulance, they could still feel a faint pulse. But there was no breathing, no motion at all. But that faint pulse gave hope to the optimists in the group. Four men lugged what was apparently a lifeless body onto a stretcher, which they then pushed into the ambulance van. Once in the ambulance, the medics took a few seconds to pull an oxygen mask over Anurag’s face, that faint pulse near his wrist didn’t allow the men trained to save lives to give up just yet.

“The ambulance sirens went off as it hurried through the empty streets to reach the only hospital in the area. Once the ambulance sirens started whirring, the police jeep didn’t stay far behind. The police seemed to be invested in knowing what would happen to Anurag, although they wouldn’t have known anything about what brought Anurag to this crash-and-burn fate.

“As the service vehicles moved, the remaining passersby scattered and moved on with their lives. The fire brigade had already moved on to other more significant affairs as soon as they had declared the crash site free of any risk of explosions. There was no one left at the crash site after five minutes of Anurag’s carcass being taken away from the scene. Not even the policemen cared to investigate the crashed vehicle any further. Perhaps, they didn’t expect to find anything of significance or perhaps, they didn’t want to stay near the vehicle fearing the inspectors from the fire brigade passed a hasty judgment, and an explosion might still happen. Over the next hour, the passing traffic would slow down a little when they caught sight of that totaled red car but then move past once they realized that they were a little late to the scene. They wouldn’t have witnessed enough to be able to tell exaggerated stories about the incident to their family and their neighbors. The ambulance took twenty minutes to reach the local hospital, but Anurag’s faint pulse had completely disappeared by the tenth minute of the ride there.

“There were two moments in the ambulance when he seemed to have regained partial consciousness. Both times, he seemed like he was trying to speak to the medic administering his oxygen. In hindsight, avoiding that exertion of trying to speak might just have bought him the extra ten minutes needed to reach the hospital; but then again, perhaps not. The people that observe a person dying in the absence of credible sources often seem to make up surreal stories about those last moments. This death was no different.”
  “Alright,” I finally intervened. It was too much to process for a first interaction. For the past fifteen years, I was trained not to cut off a patient when they got to talking, but somebody had to put an end to that train of thought, which had gone way off the rails even before it started. To say that the story had spiraled out of control would not just have been an understatement; it would have been anticlimactic. But I saw no other option.

Anurag needed to be jolted back to reality. But the problem was, I was not aware of the reality; any of it. “That’s our time, my friend. Let’s speak next week.”

With that, I got up to leave.

“Thank you for listening, doc. That’s all I could ask of anyone,” I heard Anurag murmur behind me as I left.

I showed up for our session the following week, as scheduled. Anurag continued his strange, mindless story about his own death. This week he believed that Aditi was deeply impacted by Anurag’s death. And he proceeded to tell me his story of the aftermath of Anurag’s fatal accident.

“Certain incidents in life remind us of who we really are; they connect us to our true feelings. The news of Anurag’s death had done precisely that for Aditi. And the news brought back with it a swarm of memories that she had hidden away in the treasure chest inside her mind and yet so dearly longed to be able to recreate.

“That night the image of Shubho got wiped off from Aditi’s mind. It was replaced with a different image, an image of Anurag, an illusion that Anurag was walking up towards the open front door from the street. Aditi kept looking on as Anurag kept inching closer to the open door, intent on grabbing Aditi by the shoulders and pulling her back up to her feet. But Anurag seemed to never really enter the compound of their house. He kept walking from the street towards the door in an endless loop for five, maybe six, minutes while continually smiling at Aditi. He continued running through the same motions until Aditi caught wind of the games that her mind had been playing with her.

“She looked closely at the way Anurag was moving. He seemed to be walking in the same spot, traveling long distances without any displacement, just outside that front door. Finally, she forced his rare happy image to disappear from her mind and into oblivion. The mirage of Anurag disappeared, but Aditi kept looking. Her gaze pierced right through the yellow walls of the house across from hers. It tore through the mental picture she had of the garden plants in the park that stood behind that house. And her longing, yet empty, gaze continued on until it met the nothingness and the rays of bright light just above the horizon. She saw Anurag again. This time, he was standing on the edge of the roof of the college building where they studied together. It appeared as if he was about to jump. Aditi closed her eyes, and the image vanished.

“When Aditi reopened her eyes in a few seconds, they opened with a sense of purpose. She didn’t see Anurag anymore. A deep breath filled with exasperation and despair gave her composure. She got up and closed the door.

“She then walked slowly, but intentionally, toward the bathroom. The shower was still turned on. She was halfway through the rotations that would have turned it off when she had sensed the news of doom at her door. Once she partially processed the death of Anurag in her mind, perhaps Aditi remembered that she still needed to take a bath. She entered the bathroom, walked under the flowing water from the showerhead, and then came crashing back down to the floor.

“She was wearing a blue saree for a festive celebration party at the office that day and hadn’t yet changed into the pajamas she’d have worn to bed that night. The cotton saree got soaked in an instant and decided to latch on to any skin it could find on Aditi’s body for fear of being abandoned by her. The black blouse and petticoat underneath ensured that Aditi’s flawless body only painted a titillating image but didn’t give away so much as not to warrant further imagination. She sat under the shower for forty minutes, perhaps even more, and reminisced about the priceless memories she had created with Anurag before they grew apart.”

“Aditi and Anurag shared happy memories? How did they meet?” I asked.

“The first time she met Anurag was on the roof of their college building. Aditi had come up there to take a few drags of the joint she had rolled so carefully at home before she left for college that day. She had prepared herself for a few unwelcome encounters while sprinting up to the roof. She thought that she would meet a guard somewhere on her way up the roof. She thought the guard would stop her in her tracks, and she’d have to bribe the man to pass. She had come prepared with an extra fifty in her pocket, should she need it. She didn’t need it. She found the lack of anyone guarding the way to the roof rather anticlimactic and genuinely disappointing. But she lived with it.

“On reaching the roof, she expected to meet a like-minded group of students – pseudo-intellectuals, rebels, and visionaries. She didn’t. Instead, she saw the frame of a lanky young man from behind, standing on the ledge of the roof, contemplating the amount of courage he’d need to gather to go through with the jump that was ahead of him.

“‘Hey…’ Aditi had called out.

“The young man turned around calmly, looked at Aditi for a second, jumped back in from the ledge, and smiled at her. Aditi didn’t smile. She stumbled back a step, maybe two. She never admitted it, but the heinous cut mark across the left eye of the suicidal Anurag had scared her out of her desire to get high.”

“So, Anurag was suicidal in college?”

“Yeah, sometimes. But not when he was with Aditi.”

I held myself back from probing further. Instead, I simply let him continue his story. “Then?”

“Anurag smiled and said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not as dangerous as my face suggests.’ And the young man burst into a moment’s laughter. It was evident that he had conjured up that laugh quite strategically to lighten the mood. It didn’t work as well as Anurag had hoped it would. ‘Shut up,’ she said.

“Anurag’s little act fell apart without even a moment’s notice. ‘You were about to jump. If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I am going to start screaming that you brought me here to try to get me high and molest me’, she said while holding up her joint an arm’s length away from her right ear.

“Anurag’s face had turned from anxious to nervous to red in the few minutes that had led to this remark. And now it turned pale. It was almost as if Anurag was regretting not jumping out from the edge of that roof when Aditi had first shouted out at him from behind. But the conversation that ensued changed the mood for the better. Aditi saved a life that day, and in the most wonderful of ways.

“After absorbing the shock of the previous statement from Aditi, Anurag had let out a sigh. And in that sigh, he had let all his guards down to a perfect stranger. Perhaps it was easier to do that because she was a stranger. Anurag didn’t have to worry whether she was cultivating a bias based on unfounded judgments. And he never regretted letting his guards down that day. For once, he had found someone who genuinely didn’t care about the cut mark over his right eye, his gracelessness, or even the horrible rumors about him that never seemed to go away.

“On the roof of that college building, they spoke for at least forty minutes. In those forty minutes, Anurag’s laughter had turned from manufactured to earnest. And Aditi’s laughter, Anurag found, grew more generous every minute. By the end of it, Anurag didn’t feel the need to commit suicide anymore. He didn’t think the reasons that drove him to that state of mind were as significant as the laughter he shared with Aditi. And Aditi didn’t find her trip to the roof of the college building as futile as she suspected whilst on her way there. She did find a like-minded peer to share a few drags with on that roof. Just as she had hoped when she left home that morning.

“Years later, Anurag had once narrated this story to one of his students. The young girl aspiring to be a woman business leader someday, just like Aditi, had agreed to come home one weekend for a lecture on the use of storytelling in business. He told her the story in vivid detail but switched the name of the girl that saved his life. Anurag told his student that Niharika saved his life in college that day. Not Aditi, Niharika.

“Aditi was home that day. She could hear most of the lecture from the next room. The highlights of Anurag’s narration stayed with her forever. He said he could never forget his college girlfriend, Niharika, because she literally saved his life that day. He said he would never be able to love anyone like he had loved Niharika. And he said to the young lady, ‘If you ever have a chance to be a Niharika to someone, don’t squander it to become an Aditi.’

“As he narrated this story, Aditi sat in the next room, listened intently from the rocking chair next to the bed, and wept and wept. She continued weeping silently until she had to get ready and go out to meet Shubho at a restaurant, looking as striking as ever.

“Aditi had decided not to wait around and hear any more after that. The young girl had also become a little squirmy, knowing that the Aditi that Anurag was referring to was his wife in the next room. She left soon after.”

I had slipped in and out of listening to the story for the last few minutes of it as I gazed at Anurag’s face, all thoughts suspended, for a moment. I wondered what he would look like if he actually had that ugly scar across one of his eyes that he refers to every once in a while. I tried my darndest to identify traces of any healed scars around either of his eyes, since he had fluctuated between the scar being over his right and left eye at least thrice in the stories he had told me so far. Unsurprisingly, I found none.

Anurag must have noticed my wavering attention and he chose to help me out.

“I guess our time is up, Doctor. Do visit again, next week.”

Interested to read more? Get your copy of Based on Lies: A Sinister Psychological Thriller from Amazon or Notion Press.

If you wish, you may also pick up the Kindle versions of Crimes of Love and Unhinged separately.