Page 136 - Till the Last Breath . . .

15

Zarah Mirza

Zarah lived fifteen minutes away from the hospital and usually the roads

were deserted by the time she got home. That night was no different. She
was tired, both mentally and physically, after a long day of injections, tests

and complaining patients. She parked her car at her usual place—outside
the apartment complex. After six months of fighting and haranguing with

neighbours and other flat owners for parking space, she realized it just
wasn’t worth her time. It was just a car! Parking feuds were common in her
neighbourhood and she felt lucky she wasn’t a part of them any more.

She dragged herself up the stairs of her apartment—something she did
regularly to keep herself in shape—and put the key in. She tried it again.

She kept jemmying the keys for the next thirty seconds but the lock didn’t
budge. Locked from the inside? Oh no. This can’t be happening.
Reluctantly, she rang the bell and waited for the worst. The sound of

approaching footsteps made her belch. She wanted to run away. The door
was flung open. She could feel the vomit in her mouth.

‘Hey, beta!’ her mom shrieked and then hugged her. The dupatta wrapped
around her nose and mouth indicated that she had been mopping and

cleaning the house.
‘You come home so late? Every day?’ she asked as Zarah walked inside

the flat, her shoulders drooping, and threw her bag on the shoe rack. The
house was much cleaner, and smelled fresh. She had never been messy—
given her cleanliness-obsessed mom—but her mom still made the house

look a lot cleaner. She wondered what had happened to all the bottles of
alcohol—stacked in neat rows beneath her bed—she had duly collected to

empty them into herself—or herself into them.