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Srishti-2022   >>  Short Story - English   >>  The Sleeping Pills!

Meera Radhakrishnan

UST Global

The Sleeping Pills!

She was supposed to consume her sleeping pills yet for another day which already had made a clean entry to her daily routine for the past 1 year. Apart from the busy working schedules, she has nothing left behind in her life. Yeah, a workaholic, highly dedicated one. She didn't even notice her own office chair which is shuttling back & forth.

 

In fact, as per the common talk, her colleagues tagged her under a special category named being one among the extra ordinary creatures! The category is having solely single participant which is herself. This strongly showcases that no one is dare to beat & compete with her.

 

It was all in a sudden, her life put its gear to an entirely different one from the usual mode, which may not be included in all the gear boxes! The dosage of pills needs to be consumed increased each and every month. And the frequency of consumption increased from once to twice and then twice to thrice and finally to 2 hour each. Though she has to undergo treatments which was noticed lately, she still used to go for her daily checkups with the laptop on one hand and the prescription list on the other hand.

 

Even though her colleagues and superiors noted her physical changes, they kept mum and never minded. Since she is one among the folks who worked hardly for the company to attain & sustain its market position. And they thought like, when spotting the same to her may cause re-looking to her physical & mental changes due to illness by herself. And due to this she may lose her existing caliber to hold the baton of the company and even can face a steep loss to company.

 

Her manager now gradually began to shout at her due to lack of adequate outcome as expected from her recently on-wards. Even though he bit knows about her pathetic condition, he never minded and ignored all those sentimental stuffs in order to focus the company profit alone. She tried her best by convincing them that, she will complete all assigned works by depriving herself of her sleeping schedule.

 

Restlessly she began her additional schedule as said after reaching home. She was supposed to take her tablets today as per the prescribed dose but had to miss all of them, due to very urgent client meetings. Her pain tolerance capability needle kept on descending targeting to approach the zeroth position. And she is now able to see the flag hoisted at the finishing point of her final lap. She could also see the last sand particle inside the hour glass grinning at her by shining in reddish color which silently implies like the last bogie of a train.

 

Thinking about the next day’s usual 1 minute condolence silence which is somehow adjusted with the business timings by the company, she slowly took her hand from the laptop and shut the doors of her vision slowly narrowing the line of sight with her laptop by releasing the last carbon dioxide particle from her body, which will never intake the surrounding oxygen anymore.

 

Still the laptop murmured with popping up sounds of ping messages, mails, etc. which all kept on shouting at her -- “Hey, are you there?” , “ Are you done with that extra analysis work?” , “What about the status of that report?”, etc…

 

Her keypad itself silently wished to reply back to all the ping messages & emails that, “At least now, let her have some rest please.. A Rest in Peace..!!!”