The Eleventh Hour

She was murmuring to herself, “Why me? What had I done?”
“How am I gonna face the world now?” Her silent tremors continued.
“My life, it’s all over now.”
While the half of the city was celebrating that it was Friday, the other half was injected with introvertism. People were entering the virtual world as they had forgotten how to act in a real world. The world was changing into emoticons from the normal ‘hi’ and ‘hello’. The night life of Baneshwor was not that noisy as compared to the other places of country. By 10 o’ clock, the traffic was thinning out with the number of people walking around the streets.
There will always be dogs somewhere around the corner barking and letting the people know that they still exist. The sky was not that clear. It was covered by the extreme pollution of the city, but people kept searching for those falling stars to fulfill their unrealistic dreams.
Somewhere around the locality of Baneshwor, the glass of water was staying still on the table acknowledging the silence of the room. The silence made it possible for the tick tocks of the clock to play its never-ending melody.
It was almost 10:30 pm. The room was small and the only thing that was producing light for the room was a table lamp. The tube light would always flicker lately so it was turned off. The food had already been cold, and it kept staring at Dipna, who was leaning herself on the wall and was sitting down on the floor. Her head was down resting on her arms, which was leaning on her knees.
Her roommate had gone to visit her parents for the weekend, so the loneliness couldn’t be interfered by anyone. The isolation made her think and overthink. The mind always plays with the life by focusing on those moments that the people want to omit from their lives.
The silent room had silent tears rolling down her cheeks messing up her eyeliner. Those beautiful eyes were swollen as it couldn’t bear the amount of tears exiting from her eyes. The pain was evolving around the heart. The mind had nothing but the vicious images of the event that had happened to her two days ago.
Dipna was blaming her fate, blaming herself for those cruel moments. She couldn’t blame anyone. She thought she had to blame herself.
She kept thinking about it. She kept thinking about how her life changed in a moment. She couldn’t stop thinking about it.
******
Dipna used to work in the daytime in a nearby hospital and used to take the evening classes. She was studying Pharmacy and almost graduating in less than a year. She used to walk to work as the hospital was in a walking distance and from there, she used to travel to Maharajgunj for her classes. Her routine was the same for all six days of the week. And on Saturday, she had to give some time for her weekly assignments and to clean her room.
Dipna was from Ramechhap, so she couldn’t visit her parents in the weekend. She would call them every once in a while, but only visit them during major festivals. Dipna had her life sorted out with a satisfying routine for herself.
Everything was going in its own pace until the incident that shook her world. It was two days ago. The morning sunshine had some hope for the day. She woke up as usual hoping that it would be another great day. She splashed some water on her face to wipe out last day’s tiredness and start a new day.
She was all ready to walk towards her workplace. She worked as usual like she always used to. She greeted the patients and visitors with her everlasting smile. She interacted with her colleagues as she used to. The workplace had added a number of amazing people in her life. She had her lunch with her own group. When the sun was starting to rest dimming its light, the work came to an end for the day.
Dipna started her journey towards her classes. She had almost two hours to reach for her classes. She used to take a bus from where she’d work but the bus would take a hell lot of time to reach the destination. She finally reached Maharajgunj. She would have to walk for about five minutes from there to reach her college.
She almost reached her classes, and there were boys in the nearby cafe teasing and hitting on girls out loud as always. She would ignore them as always or stare at them angrily. But today, when those boys almost crossed their limit with the words, she couldn’t resist and shouted at them angrily. There was a scene of laughter inside the café. Her anger was taken as humor by those guys.
She went inside for her classes. Her mood was so good for the day and she didn’t want to ruin it because of some people who didn’t even exist in her life. The class went normal as usual. She had to return a book in the library so she told her friends not to wait for her. She came back from the library. It was almost 9:45 pm.
She started walking towards the bus stop as she didn’t want to miss the night bus that would rotate around the ring road. She felt like someone was following her. She started to walk in a quicker pace.
“Hey.” Someone shouted.
She had to stop now and look back. It was one of the boys from the café. He threw away his cigarette and kept walking towards where she was standing.
“Hi.” The boy said again.
She decided to ignore the situation.
She greeted him awkwardly and said she was getting late.
“I see you daily and I just wanted us to become friends.” The boy said.
She just could smile awkwardly, and she was scared as well.
“I am getting late right now. Maybe later.” She said.
“Can I just have your number then?” The boy asked.
“I don’t even know you. Not now.” She was just starting to walk again.
The guy grabbed her hands trying to stop her. He pleaded again, “Just your number please.”
Her body was filled with anger as soon as he touched her.
“First learn some manners.” She pushed him.
“You are one of them who sit by the café and don’t know how to respect people.” She shouted again.
“I don’t want to be your friend. So, get out of my way.” She added.
It sparked so much anger inside the boy as well. He was slightly drunk as well and couldn’t think of anything and slapped her right there making her unconscious for a while. He was so much angry that the slap couldn’t satisfy him at all. He made her lean towards him and dragged her to a nearby field.
It was pitch dark and there were no houses nearby. The bus stop was still about three to four minutes’ walk away from there. He threw her towards the ground. He quickly locked his lips with her lips so that she couldn’t scream.
Dipna was trying her best to push the guy away from her but her energy was getting sucked without any positive result. Her hands were searching for something heavy to hit the guy, but the guy grabbed both of her hands this time. He threw away her coat and started unbuttoning her pants. He pulled off her pant roughly. She was trying her best to hold her pant but she had to let go of it unwillingly. One of his hand was covering her mouth so that she couldn’t scream.
Dipna was losing everything she had saved up for someone special; she wasn’t going to give it up without a fight. She struggled again to free herself from him, but he slapped her again to make her unconscious. This time he undressed her and he was inside her taking away every ounce of respect she had for herself.
The pain that she went through couldn’t be described with those tears rolling down on her cheeks. It couldn’t be described from the suppressed screams that she wanted the world to hear.
After a while, she was staying still like a dead body praying it to get over soon. She felt like she lost everything now. The guy took away her virginity as well as her power to stand up again as an independent lady.
After some time, the guy stood up. He shouted something at her, but she couldn’t listen although he was too loud. She couldn’t react to anything he said. She just stayed like that for a few minutes. She was unable to think; her mind was blank. Slowly and steadily, she collected her coat and her bag. She put on her pant. She sat down there without any conscience.
The tears were not stopping at all. It was flowing out of her eyes for their own reasons. Her heart was numb and painless, and the mind could only think about what happened few minutes ago. She gathered up some energy and started walking towards the bus stop covering her body with the coat. She called for a taxi and went back to hostel.
********
It has been two days now. The day before, she called in sick at the office and her college as well. She hasn’t left the room in two days now after that night. Her roommate had no idea what had happened to her.
She was sick but not physically. She was sick mentally. She was sick of her body mentally. She couldn’t even believe in herself now.
Sometimes she would think of her family, how they would react if they find out about the incident. She would think about that it was a mistake to come to the capital. She was worried that her parents wouldn’t accept her at all. They wouldn’t be able to face this fucked up society at all.
She was thinking about how her mother used to tie her hair when she was younger and feed her before leaving for school. She had grown up, but the happiness was not there anymore. She had a great life and it all changed into a nightmare after that night.
The room was silent but the inner soul of Dipna was shouting that its all over for her. She had no choices left. She stood up gathering up some energy. She hadn’t eaten in two days. She was just surviving on some drops of water.
She decided to end every problem for herself and for her parents. She couldn’t imagine the faces of her parents after they find out about the incident. She couldn’t bear the pain that was burning herself from inside.
She took out a shawl and tied it on the fan towards the ceiling. She stood up on a chair and tied a knot on the shawl and placed it around her neck. She decided to let go.
The world didn’t know anything about her story. She didn’t want anyone to know about her. She just wanted to let go. She pushed the chair away and strangled herself.
The suffocation was hiding her pain, taking away her dreams, taking away a perfect happy ending for her life. The life she dreamt of, became a curse to her. The last few seconds had her parents hopes fading away.
It will become an untold story to the world and the culprit who made this happen will remain free as her script didn’t have justice written over it.
There will be no new day for her. The sun will shine again but Dipna’s world has already blacked out.
She left without confronting the guilty. She left without completing her story.
The hanging corpse will always seek for justice.
Someday, Someday.