They coexist away from the crowd

Jane opened the door with her key. As she walked towards the sitting room, she heard sounds from John’s room. That idiot had again brought a girl home. Jane turned on the television to the maximum volume. Soon John came out of the room in a disheveled state with the fair and a voluptuous lass trailing behind him.

“Hey, didn’t hear you open the door. Meet my girlfriend Sandra. She is my colleague at the departmental store. Sandra, that’s my twin sister Jane.” Sandra gave a warm smile. Jane nodded curtly.

After John bade goodbye to Sandra, Jane asked, “It’s not even two months that we have moved here and you are already back to your philandering ways. I am really tired of this whole mess.”

“I like Sandra. I am hoping to make this work.” John assured Jane.

“I’ve heard this before. We have managed to escape twice but we might not be lucky the third time. Stop getting emotionally involved in relationships.” Jane was fuming. John shuddered at the recollection of the past incidents but he knew his heart was sold out to Sandra.

They coexist away from the crowd.png — *They coexist away from the crowd*

A decade back, both their parents had been killed in a plane crash. The then thirteen-year-olds had grown up together with financial help from the church.

After three months, John expressed his desire to marry Sandra. Jane genuinely wanted to feel happy for John. But her worst fears came true when she found Sandra dead in his bedroom a week later. John was found sleeping beside the dead body. Jane screamed, “I kept telling you to stay away from women. They bring out the devil in you.” John stumbled out of bed with a throbbing head.

They had been drinking merrily the last night after Sandra accepted his marriage proposal. John looked at the pillow that masked Sandra’s face. He recollected how his previous girlfriends Shaina and Julie were discovered in a similar state by Jane. Jane had guessed about the way he might have strangulated them with a pillow though John could barely remember the incidents.

“Rush and get the car from the basement. We need to immediately dispose of the body in the nearby backwaters and leave for a new hide-out. The police might soon be on a hunt for us.” John dashed towards the door.

Jane spoke to Sandra’s corpse, “I warned you but you ignored my anonymous calls. If you had left John, you would have lived today. I had to kill you for your dreams of a future with my brother. John will always believe that he murdered you just like the previous two times. He would never know about the medicine that I administer in the meals to make him hallucinate.”

Long back she had accepted her obsession and reluctance to let anyone come between John and her. She strongly believed in the phrase ‘three’s a crowd‘ and was thus taking him away from this maddening crowd into a peaceful life yet again.

This is the third post on Day 3 of Bar-A-Thon Blogging Challenge (2nd to 15th July 2018) with Blog-A-Rhythm. The prompt for the day is Three’s a crowd while the theme for this challenge for all the days is run/chase/dash/marathon/sprint. I have chosen to combine both the prompt and theme to come up with this piece of flash fiction.

You can read the first post here and the second post here.

Author: Sonia Chatterjee

Who am I? An erstwhile banker turned blogger/writer/author. Any qualifications? A Post-Graduate degree in Chemistry followed by a second Post-Graduate Diploma in Management. I completed a one-year MFA in creative writing course from the Writer's Village University, U.S. in Dec 2020. Though I must admit that I am still trying to figure out how and when I can connect all these dots. Have I done any real work? If two years in market research, six years in banking as a branch head, three-plus years of blogging, writing, and publishing a book can be considered as real work, then yes! Where do I live? After spending life like a nomad for sixteen years in Delhi, Bangalore & Mysore, I am back to where it all started from - Kolkata. My favorite things - Books, coffee, travel, food, and my five-year-old son. What is this blog about? Through Sonia's musings, I intend to explore writing in various genres, create social awareness, spread laughter, and give words to emotions. Anything for readers? You can check out my book 'Deal of Death' on Amazon Kindle. If you like fast-paced thrillers, this Detective fiction introducing the woman sleuth, Raya Ray could turn out to be your perfect weekend read. View all posts by Sonia Chatterjee