Time Stalls!

It was five minutes to twelve in the old alarm clock that was kept on the cupboard in Shawn’s house.

Molly had decided to make a life for herself. But being independent was not easy. Each day was a challenge, every small problem a huge obstacle. She was stepping into the real world!

For a very long time, Oliver had not visited Keith. They used to be childhood buddies but ever since the summer of 1984 they had become indifferent. It was as if it no longer mattered to them who was doing what in their respective lives. Even when they were individually meeting their common friends, they never uttered a word enquiring about each other.

Daniel decided to jump-start his day listening to Kansas… Dust in the wind… All we are is dust in the wind… He had been struggling to get Molly to work for him, but she was in her own zone of sadness that emerged from her not being able to trust people, especially family, friends, and relatives who had betrayed her lately. Actually, Daniel was her only support in this difficult time. But she refrained from expressing it to him. She was too scared to be vulnerable again, to let people help her, even let them know that she needed help. She preferred to be in her own closed shell trying to work things out so that she could move ahead in her personal and professional life.

One day it was raining very heavily, and Keith happened to visit Daniel’s shoe shop. As charming and fake that Daniel was, he generously offered Keith to have lunch with him. There was an age difference of about 10 years between them and Keith always looked up to Daniel as a big brother. Daniel was a mix of sorts. He would find great pleasure in helping people and then making them bend to his own orders. A handsome looking, manipulative man in his late forties who had his eye on Molly ever since he had seen her.

Off late, Mrs. Deesa had a tough time getting sound sleep for more than four hours at a stretch. She used to complain about it very often to Charlie. She had spent her life fighting with her husband who was a gambler and survived on the earnings that she made from her job as a stenographer. Noah, her younger son had left the family for his own benefit seven years back and now the household was a hideous apartment in Mendota, California. Mrs. Deesa’s family was an apt representation of poverty in the city in which she lived. With pictures of her daughter Emily that hung on the walls of the different rooms in the house, it was a memoir of sorts. Of her past that she felt was fulfilled and joyous which Emily never really understood well. 

Things had particularly changed ever since Mrs. Deesa had lost her husband. Emily loved her father more than her mother because although she had seen her mother struggle to bring bread to the table while her father only whiled away his life, she knew that her mother was responsible for her father’s downfall. She had seen everything in her childhood, and it was etched in her subconscious.

Mrs. Deesa was a very ‘class conscious’ woman who would never be satisfied with her husbands’ appearance or his way of being. In fact, she had never accepted him for who he was, always trying to change him so that he could fit into her family circle. She always criticized him for the kind of clothes he wore or the shoes he had or even the way he ate in public. She was a weak woman who never did anything concrete to change her situation. ‘Just go with the flow’ was her philosophy of life and that had brought the household to where it was! All her life she had only deprived her husband of his confidence and when he finally started succumbing to her pressure and gave into gambling to find some peace of mind, she destroyed his image in public. 

All his life Shawn, Mrs. Deesa’s husband, had bent to his wife’s whims and fancies, but he spat vengeance after death by handing over his last hand at poker that comprised of three million dollars to Noah. He knew that Emily although she portrayed otherwise, was always distant from the family and that Mrs. Deesa, although had been with him and survived him in his difficult times, it was only a façade for the society and that there was nothing in their bond as husband and wife. The only true relationship that he ever experienced in the family was with Noah and so at a young age of 34, Noah had inherited a surplus from his father! God knows if it was a punishment of some sorts, but when he died, Shawn mentioned in his will that he had an illegal son, Charlie and that he would be a part of the house after his death who would have to be accommodated in the household by Mrs. Deesa if she had to inherit the house which belonged to Shawn.

Hey, how you doing buddy?”, said Keith as he met Charlie on the street while he waited for the signal to turn green. Charlie was first introduced to Keith by Daniel on one of their adventure trips back in the late nineties when Keith had not been married to Molly and life wasn’t as demanding as it was now. They all had diverged down different paths. Keith had completed his education and started a job in the finance sector. Charlie at the time was not aware that Shawn was his father and spent all his time with a gang of black underdogs in the city trying to make his ends meet driving a taxi. Daniel had always loved Molly but she never felt the same way for him. Molly had moved out of the city to take up a course in human resources and returned back, smarter, more beautiful and started her career with a bang, coincidentally in Keith’s firm where they fell in love.

 As Charlie waited on the signal in his taxi and Keith happened to arrive in the spot just adjacent to him, he was surprised to be greeted by him! He wanted to say so many things not having met him for years, but just managed to say … 91-80234578 … call me bro! They both moved ahead as the signal turned green. 

Mrs. Deesa made her way to the church early in the morning that Sunday as she wanted to come back home and cook a delicious meal. Noah was returning after almost three years. Emily helped her prepare the meal. Deliciously smelling thick chicken gravy, butter-laden toasted garlic bread, steaming pot of rice, fried baby potatoes tossed in white mayonnaise and lightly sprinkled with oregano along with a jar full of cold lemon juice. She also arranged for some wine just in case Noah felt like having it along with home - made cheese which was Mrs. Deesa’s specialty. Emily made a red velvet cake at home and arranged for a big tray of dark chocolates for Noah as they were his favorite.

 

It was 10 am and they expected Noah to be there any moment. The house looked unusually clean. Charlie also wanted to make it to the home early that day but unfortunately, he could not. He was working hard, driving a taxi all day as he wanted to fetch enough money for pursuing a course in English literature in a good college. Years of despair had shown him the probable darkness which laid in front of him and he had taken a diversion to a better life just in time.

When the bell rang, Mrs. Deesa went over eagerly to the door and opened it hastily. Noah stood in front of her. Tall, fair, well-chiseled body, brownish black eyes that reminded her of her husband. He greeted Mrs. Deesa with a hug and she hugged him back. As he entered the house and sat down on the sofa, Emily brought him a glass of water and said a plain Hi! He too greeted her with the same note, not trying to be particularly excited about the meeting. 

It was Sunday and Keith and Molly were having a chilled time in their apartment. Molly had finished her weekly tasks on the day prior as she had some spare time and so she was absolutely free. Keith too did not have much office workload which was unusual for him given that he was moving ahead up in the corporate financial ladder very fast. After having their morning tea accompanied by some discussion about the broken kitchen door, they both finally decided to head to the city market and get some groceries for the week and also zero down upon a few designs of modular kitchen models as it was on Molly’s mind for a very long time. They both got ready and moved out of the house. Keith was too weary of driving on a weekend and he decided to ask Charlie to take him around for his work instead. That way he would be able to spend some time with him while finishing off the household work. He quickly called up Charlie and proposed to meet him. Charlie agreed instantly.

Daniel was offloading a recently ordered imported shoe consignment into his shop. He had been waiting for it for more than four months and was glad that it had arrived just in time around Christmas which would ensure that the sale would be great. Just then he received a call from the state police department. A Mr. Pinto on the other side asked Daniel to come down for an inquiry. When Daniel asked what was it about, he was just told to come down as soon as possible. He quickly finished the offloading, shut his shop and rushed to the police station.

Oliver’s parents stood in a state of shock. They had never thought they would have to see this day. Oliver stood there, quiet, lost, not able to absorb what had happened. As Daniel entered, they asked him to identify the three dead bodies that lay in front of them. Daniel was in a state of shock to be able to grasp all the was going on. It was 11.30 in the night and the stench of the blood oozing from the bodies made him very uncomfortable. As the cops showed him the faces of the dead bodies one by one, he shuddered and yelled a loud scream. Keith, Molly, and Charlie lay dead in front of him. 

Daniel started driving back home after the identification and as his car was about to take the last turn to reach his house, the car got stuck in a ditch. Heavy rains from the previous day had created a mess on the street he said to himself and tried hard to get the car out of the ditch. As he struggled with the steering and the accelerator, he happened to look into the rear-view mirror. It was Noah. He carried an ax in his hand. Daniel was startled. He tried to run but to no recourse. Noah caught hold of him and killed him with one brutal strike on his head. Exactly at five minutes to twelve. The same time at which Daniel, Molly, Keith, and Charlie had killed his father Shawn. He and Oliver had seen them and had run away from the scene fearing that they were too small and could do nothing about it. 

The day Shawn won the last hand at poker he celebrated in the club where he was a regular. Daniel, Molly, Charlie, and Keith used to hang around together in the night in the city those days and they got to know about the three million dollars that Shawn had. Not knowing that Shawn had made his will the next day that he got the money, they had killed him whilst interrogating him for the money in his house. Mrs. Deesa and Emily had gone out of town and were to return back that night. Noah and Oliver were playing in the attic when the incidence happened, unaware of the presence of Daniel and the others in the house. When they heard some weird noise in the backyard, they rushed to the terrace to see what was happening. From their, they saw Keith and Daniel brutally killing Shawn by strangling his neck with a rope. Molly and Charlie then tied the same rope to the ceiling fan in Shawn’s bedroom and the four then escaped from the city for a good twenty years. 

When Oliver and Noah went to Shawn’s room that night, they were scared to death. At four years of age, they had seen a brutal murder. Just then Mrs. Deesa and Emily entered the room. It was five to twelve in the alarm clock in Shawn’s room. It caught Noah’s attention just before he fainted. Oliver could not stop crying and was sent back home by Mrs. Deesa who assumed it was a suicide and accepted the incidence. Noah was in a state of shock for ten days during which the police inquiry ensued and the case was closed with Mrs. Deesa’s insistence that it was indeed a suicide and needed no further investigation. Oliver never again came to meet Noah. 

Shawn had made a pact with the lawyer that the money is given to Noah after he had crossed thirty years of his age and that Charlie should not give anything from the money, but only be allowed to live in their house as he had promised his illegal wife before she died of cancer. He was her son from her first marriage and was old enough to fetch for himself and Shawn was always weary of his ways of being which led him to this indifferent decision. Oliver and his family continued to live in the city even after the incident but sent Oliver to live in a hostel. He became a very quiet child after witnessing that incident. His parents did not realize that it was after the effect of the trauma that he had experienced. He grew up to be a very aggressive child. 

That Sunday afternoon when Charlie met Molly and Keith, they finished shopping and finalizing their modular kitchen and decided to have lunch together. Oliver was in the same restaurant with his girlfriend Sherly where the three were having lunch. He used to have tiffs with her every now and then. They had a nine-year-long relationship and that day Oliver felt the need to share about his childhood trauma with Sherly. He spoke to her at length unaware of the fact that Charlie was sitting on the seat behind him. 

After having lunch Oliver dropped Sherly home and was on his way to Church unaware that he was being followed by Molly, Keith, and Charlie. The three had decided to kill him as he knew their secret. He was very close to the church and it was around 9.15 in the night. Instead of going inside the church he hid behind a tree nearby. As the three moved past the tree he quietly started receding backward to move towards his motorcycle so that he could flee. But Keith heard his footsteps and asked Molly and Charlie to retrace back. Oliver quickly reached near his motorcycle and started it in the hope of getting away from there. But the three followed him in Keith’s car. 

The road was lonely and a chase ensued between them when Oliver realized that he would not be able to fight them alone. He kept moving ahead on the road which was getting increasingly dark as they had reached the outskirts of the city. At one particular junction, there was a steep turn and Oliver managed to take a quick turn. However, the rest could not do so and ended up hitting a huge truck that came from behind. The impact was so massive, the three died on the spot. Oliver arranged for an ambulance, brought them all to the police station and also called his parents over there. Mrs. Deesa was also called at the police station and Noah escorted her as it was late in the night. After the identification had ended, he left Mrs. Deesa home and told her that we going out to meet his friends and would return in some time. 

Late in the night, Noah lay awake in his bed staring at his father’s broken alarm clock which had stopped working as it fell down on the floor the night when he was killed but was anyways retained in their house as his memory. Ever since that day the clock hands always showed the time five to twelve.