SS: Second Hand News - Part 9

Alternative ending for you all :)

Read all previous parts to this SS here.

Please note I retain sole ownership of all these works of fiction on this blog so please do not reproduce or alter my work and claim it as your own.

 

Part 9

Suicide. Dead. Cremated.

He had told everyone where he'd been for the past three months and listened in silence as they all cried, shouted and screamed.

Suicide. Dead. Cremated.

Dead. He couldn't take his eyes away from the picture. It was a horrible picture to choose. They both looked uncomfortable and miserable to be standing next to each other. Although it wasn't as if there was an abundance of pictures of him and Khushi to choose from and now there never would be.

Suicide. Dead. Cremated.

Arnav was numb, that was the only word for it. He could hear everyone talking at him, talking about him and yet it seemed as if they were miles away, talking faintly in the distance while the words 'suicide', 'dead' and 'cremated' blasted out at him from his own personal set of speakers.

Suicide. Dead. Cremated.

Suicide. He had driven her to that. Taken away everything in her life that had meaning, taken away every reason to live. And in return she had taken away his reason to live.

Suicide. Dead. Cremated.

Cremated. She'd been cremated. They had no children so that was his duty wasn't it? Who had taken his place? Babuji and Aman was the surprising answer that he received. Akash had been busy dealing with the business and court formalities, the women with Anjali's new baby and too distressed and mobbed by press to attend.

Aman. Babuji. Aman...

There was something odd in Babuji's eyes. He was looking at Arnav strangely, not with the same mix of anger and sympathy that everyone else was but as if he pitied him almost. Arnav looked down at the small urn he'd been handed. It was cold to the touch and felt strangely light like his heart. His heart. It wasn't beating a million miles a minute anymore. As Arnav looked from the urn to Babuji and back again he realised why his heart rate had suddenly steadied so rapidly.

Aman.

He needed to find Aman, he needed to speak to him. This wasn't Khushi. No. Khushi had never believed he was dead without seeing a body and neither would he. This pile of ashes in his hand, they weren't his wife. No, his heart would know if they were. It would have stopped beating long ago.

---

23^rd August 2012


We bring you even more heartbreaking and shocking news today! Guess who's risen from the grave? Arnav Singh Raizada who was reported missing three months ago and presumed dead was seen yesterday afternoon storming into his offices at AR Industries in downtown Delhi. The exact circumstances of his disappearance and reappearance are unclear but it was plainly obvious to see that the business man has not taken the news of his wife's suicide well.