Meeting up at the cosy little coffee shop in the remote end of the busy hill station was a daily ritual, for the three inseparable girlfriends. They had their seat reserved permanently at the corner by the window, overlooking heavily smoked mountains. The sun rarely made an appearance, but when it did, the fog melted, showing the eerie brown crevices on those hills.
The usually chatty table was not witness to a pleasant scene today. Tina, one of the ladies, cried inconsolably in front of her close chums, as they waited patiently for her to calm down. The sun appeared and the fog disappeared, revealing those deep crevices on the hills. But the rays that seeped through the glass window struggled to warm their French-pressed espressos; the hot cups already failed to do that, as those depressing minutes passed by.
An hour later, when Tina finally regained her composure, Sophie held her hand, “ok, hush now sweetie! Tell us what happened, you know we will be there for you no matter what”
“He cheated on me again, that filthy snot. If he wants to sleep around with every woman in this god-forsaken town, why the hell did he even have to marry me?” Tina burst into tears again. Mona pitched in now, “Honey, you are going through what Sophie went through a year ago. Do you remember what we did to her husband?”
Tina looked helplessly at Sophie. Sophie nodded in agreement “My husband deserved it for what he did to me, your husband doesn’t deserve another chance either, he must go too”
‘But I still care for him, I don’t want him to suffer as your husband did in his last moments’, said Tina, gazing sadly at her now cold coffee. Sophie grasped Tina’s hand tighter “Don’t you worry; all I have to do is increase the dose. He will just feel a pinch, that’s all’. It didn’t take much time after that for the ladies to finalize their plan. They dumped their coffee into the bin and walked out of the cafe.
Wiping his tears, the prisoner of cell C-182 splashed his cold coffee on the window panes. Outside the window, the sun was still bright, keeping those deep brown crevices on the hills very much visible. For some reason, the longer the sun shone, the more agitated the ladies felt, who lived in his head.
The guard sitting in front of that cell watched the bizarre gestures and utterances of the lone prisoner nonchalantly. “It is one of those days for this guy, not sure what happens to him when the sun shines on his butt”, he thought.
In the initial days of his job, the guard used to shout at those mentally disturbed criminals hoarded up at the notorious psychiatric section of the central jail. He used to be disgusted by both the nature of their crime records and their annoying habits, a revulsion he had no choice but endure throughout his long shift.
But his experience over the years made him sympathetic towards them, as he gradually deduced that those prisoners did not really have their minds under their control.
“You should be cleaning that window by yourself you know” the guard complained in a soft tone, finishing last of his salted peanuts. Dusting his hands, he went on his loo break, passing through the dim lit alleys of the colonial building. Meanwhile inside C-182 and inside the prisoner’s mind, Tina tiptoed into her bedroom, with Sophie’s poisonous syringe, to avenge her husband.