Beautiful and Dead

Hassaan felt a cool breeze on his face, and felt his fatigue wearing off. He was on the roof of his house… his new house. The beautiful two-story place he had just bought. He smiled after what felt like years.

All he needed at that time in his life was a new beginning. His life had been a mess in the past few weeks. His beloved 28 years old wife Hina had gone missing one morning in early spring. Her phone was switched off, she wasn’t at her workplace or at any friend’s or relative’s place. Police didn’t take the case seriously in the beginning, saying that she would likely turn up as she had no enmity with anyone, and had no illnesses. But she didn’t turn up even after a week, and the police decided to find her. For weeks he had to face everyone, who said that his wife had run away… that she had another lover. His neighbors had started saying strange things, about a man visiting his house in his absence.. And he just asked them to shut their terrible mouths up, to stop spreading poisonous rumors about his beloved missing wife.

Then, after weeks and weeks of searching, to the horror and dismay of him and all around him, she was found dead… a partially decomposed mess recovered from a river a city away.

And after she was found, and recognized only by the remnants of clothes she was wearing, and the gold locket she wore, there were rumors about how she took her own life. About how she ran away with another man and then, in her guilt, took her own life. Some wondered if the other man “used her” and killed her.

The police wanted a post mortem, which he refused. “We are Muslims,” he said. “She covered her body from the eyes of every man other than me. I can’t let her body, and all her organs get displayed to other men.”

And so, as per the religious and social rule, that he was the one to decide for his wife, his request was respected and her damaged body wasn’t ruined any further.

He kept hearing whispers even at the close casket funeral that was held for his beautiful Hina. His beautiful, desecrated, demised Hina.

He was grieving, and also in agony due to the terrible gossips he was constantly hearing about her. He was tired, exhausted and miserable. He had even heard people saying that he was the one who killed her, the love of his life. How can someone inflict the biggest misery on oneself? His wretched self wondered.

There were countless nights he spent staring at the ceiling. Every rustle of a leaf… every creak of a door felt like it was her. He would sit up and look around, and there was no one. He would close the windows and the door of his room… and still there was a strange feeling of her presence… right beside him, on their very bed. The bed that still smelled of her. And then he would cry for hours. He lost so much weight that everyone wondered if he had caught an illness in the sorrow of his missing, and later deceased wife.

He didn’t talk to anyone.. His work performance had been the worst in his career. However, in view of his circumstances, he wasn’t reprimanded in any way. They gave him a paid leave of a month. And he spent it roaming around in the city on his motorbike.. In solo trips to the northern areas, and, for the first time ever, in the arms of women he thought he would never touch: women he paid. He would fornicate with them, and then would cry hugging them, wishing they were Hina. His very own Hina… and yet none of them were like her. No one was like her.. No one looked like her or smelled like her.

But then, it was time to start healing. He had the money he had saved, and the money they both made in all the years they lived together, her jewellery, her car. He sold everything and moved to a new place. It was closer to work, he was away from the dreadful neighbours who crushed him even more every day. He was away from family, who always treated him like a broken thing. And away from her memories and her fragrance that lingered in the house. This new house was the only way he had a sliver of a chance to move on with his life.

He was walking slowly on the roof when he saw someone on the balcony of a house two houses apart on his left. There was a woman there. He could see in the dim light of her window that she was a young, slender woman. Then she waved at him. He was taken aback by the boldness of a woman in the backward society they were in. However he reluctantly raised his hand slightly to wave back, just for an instant before lowering his hand again. How could he wave at a woman he barely even knew?

He went to bed later that night, took a sedative and slept. He was on his roof again. The woman was there again.. And she waved at him, he waved back.. And then, all of a sudden, she was right in front of him, on his own roof, her face hidden in darkness. She was still waving… His heart was pounding and he felt sweat breaking out from each pore in his body.. And then she stepped forward. Her face came into light. It was the mangled, desecrated, swollen and bruised face of Hina..

He screamed..