APARTMENT 21

Today I am gonna kill my wife... Yes, simple as that.. I will punch into office, work, eat some samosas, chat with my buddies, will come home and kill my wife.. It’s not like I am a bad person or something, it’s just that my wife has turned me insane and “irresponsible for my own actions due to the deteriorated mental condition..” as the legal counsel puts it.. I even consulted with my lawyer friend, just an innocent question on what the law would do to a a crazy person murdering his family. He chuckled and said that the person would be treated as “ mentally incompetent” and would be sent to a mental asylum, more or less. So I have this grand plan worked out.. I will go home, change into my lungi shirt attire, grab the kitchen knife which is saved for chicken and fish, put the knife through my wife’s neck, and then walk out of the apartment into the playground, all covered in blood. The kids would see me, scream bloody murder, cops would arrive ,and the whole drama would unfold like some bizarre serial. Simple, really..
The reason that i have turned into a mentally challenged person is this, my neighbour Sanjay sen gupta. He is Six feet tall, fair , handsome, North Indian, fit and has a killer smile,. He is also a serial flirt, a smoker, has shady antecedents and visits the red light area regularly, but that was not seen by my wife, or many other wives. I am five foot five, dark ( it said ebony in the matrimonial ad but i am dark) have a moustache, South Indian, fairly squat around the middle and with yellowing teeth. I am also a brilliant accountant, play the flute and have never looked at another woman with a bad eye, but my wife didn’t see that either. So every day for the past two years, my wife has been bitching about how I am not Sanjay sen gupta. I don’t bring her flowers (brought near the red light area after one of Sanjays conjugal visits,) I don’t surprise her with gifts (brought from laundered office money) nor do I look like Amitabh bachan when i get angry (to be followed by wife beating). She called me a no good, fat, ugly old looser, who scored a chick just because she was his same caste and kula. She cried frequently, wondering what life would have been with another person (Sanjay), blamed me for cheating her into marriage (ours was freaking arranged marriage) and even went on to say that I was impotent.
I don’t sleep nowadays, just lie there in the bed hearing my wife snore...She has always been a sound sleeper. I wonder if I should be just done with all and kill myself, but someone’s gotta be there for the kids. I am pretty sure she sees them as just another door in her prison cell of a marriage, a door that would prevent her from escaping. That’s when I decided on the idea of killing her myself. Someone has to go. I will escape from the mental asylum after things cool down, and somehow get my family back on track. My sleeplessness has started to affect my work, and I keep forgetting things these days. Important office files end up in the dustbin somehow, I wear socks that do not match and yesterday when someone asked me to fill out the insurance form, and I forgot my kid’s names!!! That’s when I decided to kill her today.
I walk into the first floor of our Four storey apartment, Shanthi Nivas, (no more Shanthi after this... hi hi). I say my customary hi, Hello to the neighbours, as and when required. I approach the door to my Apartment, No.21, when I notice that something is askew... the door to my home is slightly open. I push it open and walk into the living room which is in a state of disarray... The chairs have been toppled; the cushions on the sofa have been slashed with a sharp weapon, its cotton filling spilling all over the floor. I don’t even remember buying half this stuff and a faint tingling in the back of my head say something is wrong somewhere. The 32” LED TV has a sharp dent in the centre, like someone has punched it in the middle. (I remember having a 21 “ Old AKAI model, when did I buy this?) I see a photo of the kids lying shattered on the floor, and damn... I DONT EVEN REMEMBER THEIR FACES.. They look like a dark memory buried somewhere down in the deep recess of my brain, one among hundred faces.. There is a lot of blood on the kitchen floor, and that’s when I retch.. So it was in the kitchen that I did it after all..But when? Everything that I have done before the moment I entered the apartment floor is a blank to me.. Did I really kill her in the morning and then walk into the office, like it never happened? What about her body ? What about the murder weapon? And where the hell are the kids? Surely they must have seen some of this..
I follow the blood trail through the living room, past the kid’s bedroom and up into the first floor through the stairs.. I must have stabbed her multiple times, cutting major arteries, surely the one near the neck cant cause this much blood to come out.. Did I Stab her through her hatred filled heart? But that would have caused an instant death, and she seems to have survived long enough to climb to the first floor. But why? I follow the thick stream into our bedroom, the white curtains now soaked red ( When did I put up these curtains?) Inside, the vast king sized bed had its mattresses all curled up, like the person had tried to climb on it to reach the wall mounted phone? But didn’t I have one of those old ring dialling vintage phones, which was surely not wall mounted? I hear a faint whimper of a woman in the corner and that’s when I jump around and scream.
Mrs. Anjali sen gupta sat on the floor, clutching her kitchen knife. Next to her, lying face down in a pool of his own blood, was Mr. Gupta. Multiple stab wounds, face covered in blood, and lot of blood near the groin region, indicating possible castration..M y head started to throb again, and a faint whistle ringed in my ears... Mrs Guptas whimpers of killing the cheating son of a whore , wife e beating, alcoholic husband seemed to be coming room another dimension...I sat down on the floor, trying to make some sense out of it all, when realization swept over me like a giant tidal wave on a seashore..... DAMN!! I LIVE IN APARTMENT 20........