A tree called vengeance - Digging to its roots - Part III

(NOTE -- Please read in the order the story is posted... from Part I)


Getting caught red handed when cheating on the husband is a good enough reason to commit suicide. And Stella was caught in that situation, by her hapless husband, Brandon Foster which is me.

I didn’t say anything after that incident. I came back home at around midnight. I sat there on the chair in the living room. Stella is still in the bedroom. I am thinking whether to do it or not. I close my eyes, swallow my saliva and send out a long sigh and stand up with determinantion in my eyes that yes, I am going to do it.

I walk inside the bedroom. Lock the door. I look at her. She’s scared. She wouldn’t have been scared as much had I not walked in with 10 ft long rope. I pull the drawer and put on the gloves. She starts to scream as she came to know my intentions for her. Hm. When I built this house I wanted my bedroom to be completely sound proof because I didn’t want anyone outside to hear my wife’s screaming when she and I are having a great time. Now it is coming to my rescue in a completely different way. Her cries are not heard outside.

I make a ring out of the rope. It is ready to take it’s prey. Stella now knowing that her cries wouldn’t help her, tries to run towards the door. I pull her by the arms and push her to the ground. Before she gets up, I am on her. I turn her body face down. I tore her night gown and use it to tie her hands behind the back. I shouldn’t not forget to change her dress and burn her torn off gown soon after I am done.

I throw the other end of the rope to the hook in the ceiling. Hang is ready in the middle of the room. I pull and check if it’s strong enough. It looks it is.

I look at her. She looks like a fish taken out of water with all her struggling. I just wonder why humans fight so much when it is completely clear that you’re going to die. You can’t avoid the inevitable, sometimes.

She’s beautiful. After all she’s the woman I fell in love at the first sight. Beauty is such a bitch. It makes you go distance to make it yours and then you go even further to destroy it.

I take out one of dresses from the wardrobe and change her gown with this one. I take all the pieces of gown and put it in the bag. That bag will have all the evidences that would tell point me as the killer. Only thing is, it will be burnt before the world knows about Stella’s death.

At 3.05 am, exactly after 12 hours after the incident which brought us to this point, I made her stand on the chair and put the hang around her neck and pull the chair underneath her legs. She rattles her legs and makes her final efforts to stay alive. Gradually she seemed to loose energy. She looks horrible. But she looked even more horrible when I saw her with him. For the last time she kicks her leg in the air. Then she’s silent. She doesn’t move. I burn all the things that need to be including my gloves.

Before I leave the room I take a look at her. Bitch. How could she do it to me? How could she cheat on me despite all the love I bestowed on her? She deserved to die the death of bitch.

I come out of the room. I pick up the phone and call Francis.

A tree called vengeance - Digging to its roots - Part II

(NOTE -- Please read in the order the story is posted... from Part I)

I collapse to the ground. I am shivering. I am scared. I don’t know what to do. Stella is lying dead in the bedroom.

I call up my friend, Francis.

I tell him Stella is dead.

He is shocked.

He asks how it happened.

I tell him she hanged herself.

He asks why. I say, I don’t know.

He says, “Of course you wouldn’t. Stupid me. You wouldn’t have let her do it if you had known. I am sorry”

I don’t say anything. A pause.

I ask him to come over. He agrees.


Francis sees me lying on the ground staring at the ceiling blankly. He understands the situation. He puts hand on my shoulder. He doesn’t know what to say. Neither do I say anything. Tears flow down my face.

We decide to inform the police first. A case is registered. Stella’s body was sent for autopsy. Result confirmed Stella died because of strangling. Police couldn’t decipher the reason why Stella would do it. But I know why would she do it.

I lied to Francis and to the police, and to everyone. I know the reason.

A tree called vengeance - Digging to its roots - Part I

(NOTE -- Please read in the order the story is posted... from Part I)


I take a last look at her. Her face looks so calm. The face I fell in love with at the first sight. I fill her image in my eyes and close as if to hold it there forever. Then they close the casket. When I opened my eyes I see him. Dave. Dave Madison. Why is he here? He looks sad.

He behaves as if it’s his wife who is dead. I hate his sight. I hated him from the beginning. I hate to look weak in front of him. You wouldn’t like to look weak and beaten in front of your enemy, would you?

I know him from school. I don’t know why but we depised each other from the first day of our school. There was a strange rivalry between us for which the reason was not known to anyone, even to us.

He bought a motorcycle, I bought a car.

I got selected for the football team and most of the times sat on bench, he got into Cricket team and became captian.

He got a girl friend and I did her.

Yes. That’s when all hell broke loose. Our rivalry turned to enemity. The hatred which was under wrap came out in open. Competition got even worse. We always tried to outdo each other.


And, the end of our competition was this. Death of my wife, Stella Foster.

Chaos Theory

I decide to give a skip to my day’s schedule which now has become kind of boring and tedious despite containing things that aren’t much difficult or repetitive, in fact, everyday there is something new but only that it’s already known to me as everyone’s schecdule is decided by one gigantic computer which was installed to bring in the order into the chaos so prevalent in the pre-computerized world, so that there are no conflicts betweeen people, no traffic jams on the road because the monstrous computer knows everyone's whereabouts, and it is maintaining this order with highest efficiency, and I confess here that I enjoyed it very much in the beginning because everything was in order, it was different, but lately I have grown weary of all that, and I strongly feel this new system has taken out the excitement from people's lives, because excitement is not knowing what the excitement is but guessing what the excitement is going to be, this system doesn't give that opportunity anymore, and for that reason I decide to instill a little chaos in this order and enjoy myself, I, the first person after the computerization, am not going to follow the pre laid path but take different one which is not decided by some huge computer but my own brain, and I know it is going to bring huge chaos into the whole system because if I don’t follow the computer’s order, it doesn’t know where am I and what am I going to do and hence, is not able to direct others and it will lead to a chain reaction where everything goes haywire, oh, it is evil, you say, and I say I can’t agree more on that, I have stopped caring for all that and here I am, taking my own path and I go with my own plans as you witness a big chaos, the whole world is crumbling down for there is no order, and I am the one to blame and I am blamed, and the computer, for the first time in ages, has been shut down, none of the people know what they have to do, or should I say, they aren’t told what they have to do and so they should do what they want and it’s freedom, then there is chaos, perhaps freedom is chaos, or chaos is freedom, I am not sure, but they seem to not want that freedom, partly because they see chaos not the freedom so, I get arrested for what I did and I am gonna be hanged now, and I am sweating all over, and they’re asking for an apology which could mean just few years in jail but I am not up for the deal, it is not worth it, moreover I am sure there are few in that crowd who think what I did was right, they will respect me for that, they feel happy because someone was able to see what was wrong and few will realize what was wrong, none of it will happen if I apologize, and if I don't apologize others will repeat what I did, and it will go on in a geometric progression and one day we’ll reclaim our world which is very human and exciting, filled with chaos that’s created by us, the chaos that we define our reality by, chaos that defines that we're human, chaos that we call freedom, liberty, joy, that is our revelation, but my only regret is I won’t be there to see it and enjoy it or feel it, and I wish I could but it has come to a stage where either I will die and make it happen but not enjoy it or stay alive and never make it happen, and I make my choice, I am going to sacrifice myself for what I beleive, I am going to die and make it happen.

I open my eyes. I touch my face, it is all sweating and sticky. I am not dead, I am still alive and breathing, still in the world that’s filled with chaos. There’s no computer to tell me what am I going to do today, I am still on my own in the very world for which I said, there’s need to bring an order into this chaos, like some huge super computer to put everything in order and maintain it, when my friends and I were discussing the world last night after we'd emptied two full bottles of Bacardi (blast).

Stealing movie scenes - Notting Hill

Anna Scott, a beautiful and highly succesful actress, is sitting at the dinner table in the middle of a bunch of loosers who, by now, are very comfortable being loosers and have no qualms about admitting it instead are secretly happy that none among the lot is successful. Now the competition is to win the brownie by convincing other loosers that oneself is the biggest looser of the lot. Perhaps, a sort of console to defeated soul. So, the competition starts and every one starts giving it their shot.

But when they thought the competition is over, the actress interferes, “Wait, what about me?” That’s right. Who would expect a highly successful and popular actress to fight for a “Worst Loser’s Trophy”? Max rightly expresses his surprise by saying “Sorry, you think *you* deserve the brownie?” But Anna insists on giving it a shot.

There she goes with her saddest of lines. “I've been on a diet every day since I was nineteen, which basically means I've been hungry for a decade. I've had a series of not nice boyfriends, one of whom hit me. Ah, and every time I get my heart broken, the newspapers splash it about as though it's entertainment. And it's taken two rather painful operations to get me looking like this”, she continues, “And, one day not long from now, my looks will go, they will discover I can't act and I will become some sad middle-aged woman who looks a bit like someone who was famous for a while”. There is a long pause as Anna finishes her bid for brownie. Loosers almost thought they lost it, before Max breaks the silence, “Nah, nice try gorgeous, but you don’t fool anynoe”. William says, taking brownie in his plate, “Pathetic effort to hog the brownie”.

However, by then we, the audience, along with the characters on the show, know that there’s a looser in everyone of us, who has failed in some way in our pursuit of success.


Movie: Notting Hill

Objects in the mirro... Hmm, never mind!

Unknowingly my wrist was twisting the accelerator and thereby opening up the throttle, pushing more fuel into that monstrous 200cc engine which in split of a second was converting that vapor into thin air, farting it out and pushing me along with my motorcycle to higher speeds on the beautiful and empty, perhaps empty that’s why beautiful, highway between Mumbai and Ahmedabad which looked like a path made by snake with its zig zag curves, while the speedometer on my bike was incrementing the reading by digit by digit 90 to 100 and then to 110 it went on 127, 128, 129 and reached 130, top speed claimed by the makers of my motorcycle, but my bike seemed not to give heed to those statistical claims and went on to reach 132 kph, a feat I would cherish for proving the makers wrong about their own prodigal baby, but then anybody can be wrong, just like the moron who switched the left indicator on and took a right turn, making to ponder for a moment that I didn’t know who was ahead of me and whom I left behind but then it didn't seem to matter, because the ones ahead were fast turning from obstacles into objects in my rear view mirror while the ones in the mirror were all just mere objects whose size was getting reduced smaller and smaller by every passing second making me feel for once that “Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear” written at the bottom of the rear view mirror might not necessarily be true, at least when I am riding my motorcycle on a highway singing, "When I am riding, what's ahead doesn't matter, What I've left behind matters even less".