A Story not of a Suicide

She flinched her back heading down towards the direction of her toe. She had read somewhere that just an attempt to maintain a straight posture can fill one with self-determination and confidence. Realizing that she was unable to maintain her posture made her feel more miserable. After many days, she missed her college again. She locked herself the whole day. Walls of her room were just chuna-white waiting for another coat of bright color to be painted; she stared the ceiling of her room the entire day.

Hanging is the easiest way to die, she knows that. By the look of people hanged in movies, one may not develop that inference but scientifically you die before your brain could get a slight hint of the pain of being hanged. As a student of anthropology, she knows by fact that majority of people in world who have attempted suicide had chosen to be hanged. The ceiling in her room had a hook in the centre, probably meant for holding a ceiling fan. She imagined herself in the hook instead of the fan. She does that a lot. One day she even placed a chair right below the hook and kept a stool above the chair. Standing in the stool, she thought she would kick the stool after winding her favorite white scarf around her neck. One..Two..Thrr….She couldn't kick the stool.

Today she is trying to remember why she couldn't kick the stool that day. Her body aches the same way today also but the difference now is she doesn't want to bring in the chair and stool in her room. She is feeling weak in her knees. Eleanor Smith used to feel similar pain in her body during her days of depression. In a diary found after Eleanor's suicide, Eleanor had mentioned that her body is possessed by a beast and that beast keeps torturing her both physically and mentally.

Runa was only mentally pressured till day but today her mental pain has been aided with physical one too. Her trembling knees are beating along the same pace of her scared heart. Her fear heightened up when her brain started to compare herself with Eleanor Smith, a victim of depression about whom she had studied in one of her psychology books. Terrified by her own thoughts, Runa ran out of the room. Right out of the room, a passage appeared at her right foot that led her to stairs. The stairs then led her to terrace. She tried to jump from the terrace but could not. Frightened, she came back to her room.  

At 22 she had retired from her secret job. Her office was stationed in Thamel. After passing through a shallow corner in Paal Street of Thamel one could reach her office situated in 2nd floor of the 5 storied one-roomed building. Front door of her office had a small faded notice board, Massage Parlor. It was a known fact that most of the massage parlor in Thamel provided sex-flavored massage service; but not in Nira's office. Runa used to be called Nira then though Nira is also not her real name. Nira did not like mixing pleasure with business. In a narrow street like that, it was very hard to find her office and people who found her office were never the normal people.

People used to look for Nira for doing their dirty jobs. Extortions! Extortions that also involved killing sometimes. Though she never liked when people died, there were few situations that turned her into murderer. Anyway, most of the killings she performed where either by accident or for self-defense. She could never sleep the night she killed or when she had to see someone die. She kept the record of people who had to die because of her. Before her 22nd birthday she remembers her record being 3. Something happened in her 22nd birthday. Something that made Nira declare her retirement. As always it was extortion. Extortion for information! This time it was Grey Shephard a French mother who she kidnapped along with her 6 years old daughter Stella. Nira never knew or let's say she was never allowed to know what was the information about or what for. The farthest she knew was that she was somehow working for intelligence agencies of different countries. Therefore her work was also mostly seasonal. Only when those agencies had something to do in Nepal she was called by Sane dai to do the job. Sane dai had convinced her whatever she was doing was not a sin, and in fact he had her believe that she was working for the good guys who were trying to catch bad guys. Her job was to bring the people to locations that Sane dai had asked. She seduced men she could, used guns, attacked the ones whom she could not seduce and deluded women to bring them to places she was asked to. Many time she had to take them to her office in Thamel and once her white-shirt-black suited contractors arrived she had to leave her office. She had no idea what did the contractors asked or what did they do with them after interrogation. Nira was expected to do the same with Grey Shepherd and her daughter. But something went wrong that day. Number of people who had to die because of her became 4 in her 22nd birthday and that fourth person was the little girl of Grey Shepherd. It is a tall dark 6 storied building. 6 years old Stella is standing in the edge of terrace, Nira goes behind her and slowly pushes her..after that all she can hear is her own screaming. 

Even after months she is still haunted by this nightmare. She is often full of sweats when she wakes up by this recurrent dream of Stella falling from that dark building. A six year old girl died and she was responsible for that. In fact she killed the child. Murderer of a child! Nira was scared more than sad and not because she would be caught but because she felt empty. She touched herself but could not feel back. Feeling-less made the entire world meaningless for her. Nira was never a fan of God but that day she thought if there was hell the darkest place was reserved for her. She could not think anything more. Running was the only thing that came to her mind. She ran and ran and ran. She got into the first bus she saw at Bus park. Later on she realized the bus heading towards Sindhupalchowk district. Her running finally stopped in Melamchi.  She knows, deep inside she is still trying to escape but has no idea where she will find the ultimate hiding cave.

Nira changed her name. Nira is now Runa. She has joined B.A in Melamchi. Stays and works in an orphanage built by a Korean woman some five years ago. She rarely holds a smile in her face but yet has managed to get along with the children of the orphanage. There's not a single night she remembers going to bed without wet eyes or woke up in middle of night with full of sweats. Her past haunts her like a mosquito in dark.

Yes, like today, she has attempted suicide many times. But she did not climb a chair today. She was scared to death. She stayed in her bed until the pain in her body and her heart finally ached away. With a lot of courage she took out a notebook.

She wrote, "Things scare us. And, when the 'scare' takes over us, we might and many times go crazy. When it's crazy, we lose track but that's not all what is in the story. Before "Scare" and after "crazy" there's always an option, a road ahead, that you started to walk with an objective. There's never 'never' or 'give-up' but always 'go -on' even after thousands of 'lost fights' that you have fought sometimes with others and most of the times with your own-selves. SO, 'go-on' no matter what and no matter where, it always works, either in a breaking family, lost love, wrecked-friends, polluted future or your lost soul. Just 'go-on' with trying to mend things that are valuable ahead and 'go-on' with leaving things behind that hurts. There's always an option and there's a switch within you to click on that option. It's only a matter of your self-determination whether you choose to click on or simply ignore the switch. (Hope will set you free) 5/8/2014 11:38 pm"

To be continued…………..