They were sitting at the table by the window. He looked out and he could see raindrops trickle along the glass looking like random tears. The raindrops played with the lights of the cars, shining at places and then glowing very bright before they trickled down and could not be seen anymore.
He could not make himself look at her. It ached him. He felt like he was staring at the biggest mistake of his life. He knew he broke her. He just did not want to look the wreckage in the eye.
However Asha seemed indifferent. She was looking at his shirt and noticed that he had tried to iron it and had failed miserably. It had the creases at the wrong places, the cuffs were badly done too. However when Arush cleared his throat, her thoughts shifted back to why they were there that evening and her heart sunk. ‘Chitra , my little baby girl.’ She thought to herself. They had been to the doctor and he seemed worried by the results. Chitra had been getting a lot of tests done on herself. The results weren’t pleasing any one. Her WBC counts had increased alarmingly. The doctor wanted to meet the parents before any decision was taken. She was immersed in her thoughts and didn’t even realize what Arush and Viren had been talking about. All she cared now was that her baby wasn’t okay.
There was a sudden shuffling of feet and when Asha looked around, she saw that both of them had got up. She turned to Arush to ask what happened.
“We’re going to meet the doctor now. Come.”
She walked behind them as they walked to the car. It was still drizzling a little. She sat down in the backseat and started thinking about the articles she had been reading over the Internet. Increased WBCs were not a good news and she was trying to prepare herself for some pretty hard stuff to deal with. All this while she hadn’t said anything. But now she chose to.
“When can we have the other reports , Arush?”
“They must have come by now, we’ll pick them up first and then meet the doctor.”
“Hmmm.”
Their car smoothly stopped at the entry to the hospital. She and Arush got down.
“You both move to the lobby, I’ll park and come“, said Viren.
She kept on walking till she reached the help desk. She was so preoccupied that she quite involuntarily went up and asked the lady who was noting something down at the help desk. “Excuse me, from where should I find the reports to a test we did early this morning?”
“Ma’am, take a left turn from straight ahead. You’ll see the pathology labs. There at the desk, you may ask for the reports.”
Asha turned away quietly without a word. She walked as told and found herself standing at the desk.
“I’m here for the reports of a Chitra Ganguly.”
The person at the desk shuffled through a few brown envelopes and handed her out one with a lot of cold indifference. That man there, with those envelopes , had so many stories sitting at his desk. The story about the father who has cancer, the story about the grandmother who’ll live a few more days. The story of the son who needs and Appendectomy, and the story of the teenage girl who was unaware of her Leukocytosis.
The Broken Clock 