Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Thursday, April 07

Rishi woke up at 6.30, made tea for all, one by one Kulcha, Kulfa and Fulka woke up; they had tea and waited for their turn to take bath. Rishi was not going to work; he was in no rush to take a bath.
In his room he started his laptop and opened a browser window. He typed ‘eel poisoning’ in the search engine. Indeed fresh water eel’s blood was poisonous. It contained ichthyotoxin. In an experiment about ten drops of it were injected to a dog, it died in half hour. Websites said, people, who eat eels, squeeze out all blood or cook it properly; it acutely affects the kidneys.
Rishi heard commotion in the living room, he shouted, “What is happening guys.”
Kulcha opened the door, he said, “Coach something has happened, Kulfa has stopped blinking.”
Kulfa entered in the room, he was no blinking like a faulty tube light but looking at Rishi.
Rishi asked, “Why you stopped blinking, man.”
“I stopped blinking,” Kulfa replied, “after we had that liquor.”
“Wow! Wow! Wow! My friend who gave me that liquor said he put some herbs in it.”
“There were herbs in that liquor!” Kulfa said, “I was feeling very hot last night. I used ceiling fan at full and also used table fan, then I was able to sleep.”
“Kulcha let’s see for how long your tube lights stay fixed,” Rishi said, “We will ask my friend Rajugopal, a farmer, about what he put in that liquor and how he made it, before he himself forgets the recipe and drinks it all.”
“Coach where, and how, do you find these friends?”
“His cows tried to attack me with their horns,” Rishi told to amuse them, “they thought I was a veterinary surgeon and was there to inject them syringes or poke my arm in their behind.”
They roared to a laugh.
They were getting late, prepared and left for work.
Rishi logged into his email, same strange Nancy replied and he replied her back. He opened Cynthia’s long email, as he started reading she caught him on the messenger.
‘Hi Rishi.’
‘Hi Cynthia, what’s up?’
‘All is well.’
‘What’s down?’
‘All well there too.’
‘I was reading your long email.’
‘Please read it and reply me, it is very important for me, Rishi.’
‘Why?’
‘You made me upset by saying: ‘nothing - that can make any sense to you.’’
‘Sorry Cynthia, that I made you upset.’
‘Why you said that?’
‘After seeing Dr. Ryan’s picture, an opinion formed in my mind and not necessary, my ‘all opinions are correct.’
‘Anyway, what is your opinion?’
‘Cynthia, nothing - that can make any sense to you.’
‘We are back to the same circle, Rishi.’
‘Hold on let me read your email.’
Rishi waited for more than one minute, he wrote: ‘Cynthia, you are getting married with Dr. Ryan.’
‘Yes, engagement ceremony will be at our home, at 17th April, this month.’
Rishi sat quietly, closed his eyes, he knew she was waiting for his reply but he took time.
She wrote: ‘Are you upset, Rishi.’
‘Yes.’
He waited for Cynthia’s reply, that came after a minutes.
‘Do you love me? Just say so.’
‘You are like a flower to me, like a child to me. I love you, Cynthia.’
‘Thanks, should I call off the engagement.’
‘I don’t know Dr. Ryan, that’s all I can say. You can know a book only after reading it.’
After a pause she wrote: ‘Rishi.’
‘Yes Cynthia.’
‘I booked your ticket to SFO; you will be arriving here at 9th April Sunday, 10.30am. I am sending you e-ticket.’
‘Thank you very much.’
‘Are you upset that I bought you ticket.’
‘No Cynthia, I am not upset, but happy.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I want to see Dr. Ryan as soon as possible.’
‘I will bring him along to pick you from the airport.’
‘OK.’
‘You can stay at our home, if you wish.’
‘OK, you can take me to your home first and then ….’
‘Then …. What?’
‘Then – like water, it flows to the least resistance.’
‘OK, you will be free to do what you wish.’
‘I have friends in Freemont and Modesto, also a new friend Nancy.’
‘Nancy! Nancy who?’
‘She says she is a surgical nurse in some hospital in your area.’
‘We have a Nancy, a surgical nurse in our hospital.’
‘She sent me her pictures. I am forwarding you her email.’
Rishi forwarded Nancy’s email to Cynthia.
She wrote back: ‘She is the same Nancy, how come she emailed you?’
‘I have no idea, Cynthia.’
‘That is strange, huh, small world.’
‘Cynthia, write me Ryan’s email address, I may email him.’
‘OK, I am forwarding you the funny email he forwarded me today, you will get his address.’
‘Thanks.’
‘What else is new, Rishi?’
‘Kulcha is now “WE”, I asked him he needs a new Pajama, he said “WE” will buy it.’
‘That is soooooooo funny, Rishi.’
‘And, Kulfa stopped blinking.’
‘I am calling you Rishi, I want the whole news.’
Rishi’s cell phone buzzed.
“It’s me, Rishi.”
“It’s me, Cynthia.”
They talked and laughed for half hour.
“Rishi, it is nine pm here, my time to go to bed.”
“Bye Cynthia.”
“Bye Rishi, and listen, your opinion about Dr. Ryan is very important for you.”
“Bye Cynthia.”
Rishi was in thoughts.
If I can hack Ryan and Nancy’s email passwords? Only Kulcha can do it, but it is impossible to make him do anything.

2

Ryan was in the hospital operation theater, anesthetizing a badly crushed accident victim. Nancy was also there with another nurse to assist in the multiple fracture surgery.
She whispered in Ryan’s ears, “I wrote an email to Rishi.”
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
“No, I am just befriending him, believe me Cynthia is very seriously involved with him.”
“Well, be careful.”
“He replied too. I have forwarded you our communication.”
“Thanks.”
“Too bad, she has changed her password; we will be missing the fun.”
“Yes too bad,” said Ryan, injecting anesthesia in dripping line, “are you fixing up your journal?”
“I have already done it.”
“Good girl.” Dr. Ryan said, “I am going for a cup of coffee, will be back in twenty minutes.”
“You can’t leave doc,” she said with a smile, looking at a broken up accident victim, “it is against the rules.”
“Hell with the rules.” Surgeons were not there yet, only Emergency Medicine doctor was supervising the procedure.
He removed blood soaked surgical gloves, washed his hands and walked out. He badly needed a cigarette.

3

Jantilal Kantilal Desai, the super-computer-programmer, also called as Kulcha by his best friends was in his office, was logged into a German Bank’s severs, was testing a script he wrote for that specific purpose. After he ran the script, he saved the log on his SUN Workstation, and took a vague glance at about two million lines of text file, he used his calculator and about 7 entries were missing from the list. He had to find those missing entries, and was to find the problem, and then fix it. He was not interested in doing this same work sitting at a desk in Hamburg, Germany. He hated traveling. Now he had a girlfriend, now he hated traveling even more.
He started writing a UNIX shell script to manipulate the list on his own computer to find the exact missing entries, and the sequence that followed before and after.
His phone buzzed, he was very annoyed at the interruption.
He barked, “Hello, go away.”
“I am security officer Rana, Mr. Rishi wants to see you.’
“He must not go away, send him in.”
He resumed working on the shell script, ran it on his pc. He had to wait for at least ten minutes for those two million lines to be process, one by one each.
Rishi knocked at the door and entered, Kulcha noticed his pocket was bulging with some rectangular object, it was like this was about to burst out of his pocket.
“Jantilal Kantilal Desai. Huh.” Rishi said, “I though it was Jantilal Desai.”
“Actually it is Jantilal Kantilal Maniklal Desai.”
Rishi was nodding in approval and sat comfortably on the chair facing Kulcha.
Rishi said, “Nice office you got.”
“Thanks.”
Kulcha called his secretary for two cups of tea.
“I have nothing better to do,” Rishi said, making a very serious face, “so I came here to sit with you here. I knew your office is Air-conditioned.”
Lines of worry appeared on Kulcha’s face, he wiped sweet from his forehead.
Rishi rose, with much difficulty he pulled out a very fat novel from his pocket. He placed the novel on the table and again sat down on the chair.
“You mind your business,” Rishi said, “I will be reading my book here. You don’t worry about anything. I will take care of myself.”
Kulcha begun, “God’s good fellow, Coach. When people are out of job they go out of their mind too.”
Rishi picked up the book and opened it to the beginning, he said, “Not me Pal, I am different.”
Kulcha was sweating. His secretary, a middle aged woman entered in the room and placed two cups of tea. As she was leaving, Rishi shook hands with her.
“You must call me Coach.” She left smiling.
Rishi started sipping the tea with noise, Kulcha was trying to decide whether to drink tea or not, Rishi was making him very nervous and whenever he was nervous, he felt hot and sweated. Rishi was absorbed in reading the first page of the book. Kulcha had never seen such a thick book in his life, he was wondering if it was possible to manufacture or bind such a giant paperback novel or book. His script processed the whole file but result was not desirable. He tried to work on his script but was not able to focus himself in his work.
“Coach-Coach-Coach,” he said, “Go home, it is time to work on your resume.”
“I can’t.”
“Look man, I know, you lost your job, and your girlfriend returned to America, you are wandering on the streets. It can make anybody insane. I understand your problem.”
“I am fine; I just need some company and AC to cool me down. That’s all. You mind your business and I will read my book,” Rishi said. “You have some biscuits around here?”
Kulcha rested his elbows on the table and covered his face.
Rishi said in weepy voice, “Cynthia is getting married; she has sent me a ticket to attend her engagement ceremony.”
Kulcha stood up from his chair came to Rishi and patted his shoulder.
“That’s why you are out of your mind. I would too, if Kalpan does same to me. I can’t blame your behavious. Please tell me if I can do anything. Why are friends for?”
“It is someone’s mischief,” Rishi said, pulling out a paper from his pocket, “I need your help.”
“Anything Coach, just say it.”
Rishi gave him the paper, it had two email addresses. “I need the passwords.”
“Coach-Coach-Coach-Coach, it is not my line of work.” Kulcha though for a while and then sat back on his chair and made a phone call.
“Anil, it’s me, Desai. If you are not busy, come here to my office.”
They had to waif for five minutes, a little dark man entered. It was obvious that Mr. Anil was way lower than Kulcha in the company hierarchy pyramid.
“Yes Mr. Desai.” He said to Kulcha.
“Have a seat Anil, meet my friend Rishi.” They shook hands.
When Anil took the seat, Kulcha said, “Anil we have a life and death situation, we need your help. Not an official business.”
“I will be glad to help you sir.”
“Say we have two email addresses and we want to know passwords, I know you are expert – of-course unofficially.”
Anil was embarrassed.
“Don’t worry; what I said was a compliment. Now how do we get the passwords?”
Anil begun explaining, “Mr. Desai, in recent technology, nobody can know other’s password, when a password is created, it is stored in encrypted form in the database. That’s why if one forgets password, one is never given it, it can’t be given but user is only prompted to create a new password. When we enter a password, it too is encrypted and matched with the encrypted password stored in the database.”
“Oh I see,” said Rishi.
Anil continued, “Law enforcement authorities can made email providers to disclose the contents of email, IP addresses, computer ID’s, time, place etc. etc. but nobody can tell a password.”
Kulcha said, “So it is impossible to know someone’s password.”
“Yes it is impossible unless we can fool a user to disclose his or her password. There are simple tricks. Tricks work only if the user is unaware of the tricks,” Anil said, “One can send some program, that can forward all the emails of a victim but that works unpredictable because most antivirus software has built in spy wares.”
“What can we do to help my friend Rishi, Mr. Anil?”
Anil said with a smile, “I sure can try, Mr. Desai.”
Kulcha said to him, “Anil you, take Mr. Rishi with you at your cubicle, help him out.”
Anil nodded, standing up, walked out of the office, Rishi followed him to his cubicle on the same floor. From other cubicle he dragged a wheeled chair for Rishi.
“If you tell me little bit about the circumstances and your relationship with these two people, I can help you better. We both will work on this problem and design a custom made solution.”
Rishi told, “A friend of mine is getting married to a man. One email belongs to him and other too works in the same place. All parties know each other and me.”
“Imagine, if you send them an email, that you are sending them a hyperlink where they can watch your pictures or some pictures etc. What are they going to do?”
“Sure they will be interested to see those pictures.”
“They will click that hyperlink and they will see again the same email provider’s window, of-course a fake one but similar, prompting them to put their password again to see the pictures. If they are not smart enough, they will put their password again.”
“I would put mine.” Rishi said.
“Now this password comes to us at some database, website, forum or guestbook etc, just like we fill forms on the internet and information is stored. User would be taken to a new window where he can see some pictures.”
“Can we do it here now?” asked Rishi “I have some pictures in the emails.”
“Sure, we can do it here. Use my laptop and log into your email and get me those pictures. Meanwhile I will manufacture look-alike login pages of these two email addresses.
Rishi opened his emails and downloaded some of his and his friend’s pictures that he had in the emails and saved them on Anil’s laptop’s desktop.
Anil asked, “Are you done?” I am done.”
“You are done,” Rishi asked in amazement, “so fast.”
“Oh it was nothing; I just stole login pages from email servers and only changed the form action line, and field names. I have uploaded these pages to our website here. Now the information will be sent to our website instead of Yahoo and Hotmail.”
Rishi uploaded six pictures and informed Anil. He uploaded those pictures on a free website.
Anil said, “Now type a nice brief email message, telling these two victims that, you are sending him or her, a web-link where they can see your pictures.
Rishi wrote two emails, one to Dr. Ryan and other to Nancy, telling both that since they know about him; he is sending them a link where they can see his pictures. Anil pasted the link on the both emails and clicked send button.
“Done,” Anil said, “Let me to install a small script on the website, as they put their username and password again you will receive an email from our server.”
Rishi asked, “Is it possible to create a bogus email. Time to time I get some junk emails and when I try to reply them, they returned, saying that address does not exists.”
“Yes it is possible but illegal; in these days Internet service providers catch those emails and cancel the user’s subscription.”
“Oh! I see.”
“ISP can catch email spammers after a certain number of emails, it is still possible to send one or two or ten bogus emails and playing ignorance or blaming it to virus etc.” Anil replied, “What do you have in your mind?”
“Say, if I have to send an email, a bogus email to someone. What do I do?”
“My friend wrote a shareware, Email-Donkey software, it can bombard million of bogus emails but of-course, there would be a red light at ISP computers and internet connection will be disconnected and user’s account cancelled.”
“But I need to send only one bogus email.”
“OK, I will do it for you. Tell me what do you have in your mind?”
“I will email it to you.”
“Sure, I have your email address, I am emailing you, so you will be getting my official email address here.”
“Thanks.”
“No mansion.”
Anil liked Rishi’s face; the peaceful, smiling face was making him do anything in the world.
It was lunch time, Kulcha showed up; they went to the building canteen and had lunch. Kulcah insisted upon paying the bill.
“OK Kulcha, you were a great help.”
“We are glad you feel this way, Coach.”
“Who are ‘We’?” asked Rishi.
“I and Kalpana, who else; I just talked with her, explained her about your sad, pathetic situation. No job, no girlfriend. I was telling her that you are camping in my office with a two thousand page book. She was crying.”
Rishi said, “Sometimes boat is on the donkey and some time donkey is on the boat.”
They laughed.
Anil whispered in Rishi’s ears, “I can go to jail for what I did for you.” He was a notorious hacker, his company served him many notices but he was a problem solver. Company couldn’t afford to let him go. It takes a thief to catch a thief, Anil caught many thieves there.

4

Ryan reached at his home, from hospital at 1am. He was disturbed due to a mishap at the job. Accident patient whom he administered anesthesia, woke up in spasms and pierced his own lung with a broken rib. When hospital paged him he was on his second marijuana cigarette, he ran to the operation theater, lead-surgeon had already did the job that he was suppose to do. All surgeons and nurses were trying to stop the bubbling blood from patient’s chest. They all gave him look including Nancy. God knows what will follow next.
He took a dose of cocaine a small one, and his excitement returned. Hell with this stupid job. He congratulated himself with his progress with Cynthia. She was his now, second stage too was no far away. He planned his rendezvous at weekend. He will ask her for a day out, she will be obliged because now she was his fiancée. Then he thought about his engagement ceremony. Russet Frazier will be arranging a big party and probably, soon, news would be appearing in the papers announcing their engagement. His main worry was that many girls will be upset whom he promised and with whom he used drugs. It may create nasty situation for him. Instead of joy he found his heart was beating faster. His stomach was upset, he went to bathroom and saw blood in his pot, a typical symptom of excessive cocaine use. He decided to refrain himself for a while but then instantly he felt insects were crawling under his skin. He took another dose, fourth one within twenty-four hours.
For the last many days he was not getting hungry, he was forcing himself to eat. He was having sleeping problems too, great drowsiness but no sleep.
He made up his mind to enroll himself in some rehabilitation center, paying cash and staying anonymous there but only after he will get money from Russet Frazier. Tons of money will change his life. Money is strength. Money will solve all his problems.
He turned on his computer and checked his emails; many were from his girlfriends, one was from Cynthia, thanking him for proposing her. One was from Rishi; he was alert reading the word Rishi. Rishi who had so much influence on Cynthia that she changed her password to his name. He opened that email.
Dear Dr. Ryan,
I assume you know about me; I am sending you a link where you can see my pictures.
Rishi
Below the email was a hyperlink to some website, he clicked it.
Webpage changed to a new window, login page of his email appeared again. Strange he though. Well, whatever, he again typed his username and password and Rishi’s pictures appeared. He looked at the pictures of a young man, boyish, mediocre, typical South Asian face.
Ego maniac, sending emails to all friends of billionaire’s daughter Cynthia, already started making a lobby for himself. Stupid fool.
Stupid fool-stupid fool- stupid fool- stupid fool- stupid fool- stupid fool.
He gave himself a slap, chanting stopped.
There was an email by Nancy, she forwarded her to-and-fro emails with Rishi, and he read it. So Rishi is already pretending loving her. If this Rishi creates any trouble in his getting married with Cynthia, he will be using these emails, proving to Cynthia that he is nothing but an sex driven opportunist. This is the only smart thing done by Nancy.
He was about to leave, another email from Nancy appeared on the screen; same blah-blah-blah at the end, in the reply Rishi sent her the same email.
I am sending you a link where you can see my pictures. Blah-blah-blah-blah. Foolish Cynthia can fall to your charms and to your stupid face, not me. Pal. Anyway your magic ended as she saw my face.
You wait for your turn, Pal. Try after another six months; she will be all yours, used, contaminated, diseased, filthy-rich-bitch. She is a billionaire’s daughter, I doubt if even then you will have a chance. You lousy bum, Rishi.
Rishi-Rishi-Rishi-Rishi-Rishi-Rishi-Rishi-Rishi-Rishi
He caught himself changing, “Why this name is sticking to me?” He slapped on his head and chanting stopped.
He began replying to many girls who were in love with him, some erotic and some full of love, songs and poetry. At the end he took sentences from many emails and composed an email to Cynthia. Reread it, satisfied, he clicked send button.
Job is done.

5

LaserGear stock rose by ten percent at NASDAQ, the previous day and it rose to another five percent, and still rising, but at very slow pace in India, volume stayed historic high both days. Promoters of LaserGear, especially Arvind and Jatin were now aware that someone was making a meticulously planned purchases behind the scene. Stock was being bought in small batches, from programmed workstations at about mainly, twelve locations around the world. Stock was rising due to dwindling supply. Forty percent of the total equity went to those twelve street-addresses.
Someone in the background was working on a plan to takeover LaserGear for a song. It could be nobody else, but Russet Frazier. Only he could use the manufacturing facilities of the LaserGear to the best of their capabilities. When he broke this news to his wife, she had a heart attack, was rushed to hospital.
LaserGear was slipping out of his hands, now even Rishi won’t be able to help him. Russet Frazier will never part with the half billion dollar profit he was going to make in the coup of LaserGear.

7

Rishi was roaming in the bazaars.
Kulfa called at 3pm, “Coach, my blinking has stopped for good. Guess what? Everybody at my job is coming to see me; everybody is looking at my face. Tube lights are fixed.”
“I am happy for you, Kulfa.”
“Remember that girl I used to tell you about, she congratulated me. I asked out and she said yes.”
“Good.
“Today is my turn to party, Coach.”
“OK.”
“Are you OK, Coach.”
“I am OK, why?”
“You seem sad, very sad.”
“How I seem sad?”
“Kulfa called me, he told that you were sad, all broken and beaten up. He said you went in his office with a huge, two thousand page book in your pocket, all to read there.”
“What else he told?”
“He said you are gone mental; you are gone out of your rocker. He was saying, to get rid of you, he did something that he would never have done. He was happy that you left his office.”
“I left that book in his office, will go there tomorrow to read it.” Rishi said, “Security guards gave me trouble because I was not able to pull it out of my pocket.”
“Then how did you put it in your pocket, at the first place.”
“First I inserted the book in my pocket and then I wore the pants. It was hard but not impossible. Anytime I buy pants, I check the size of pocket. Always.”
“Coach, are you OK?”
“Yeah, one hundred and one percent.”
“I mean you are going to San Francisco in this condition.”
“Airplane is like a bus.” Rishi said suppressing his laugh, “I can manage.”
“Coach please, take an auto-rickshaw and go home, you remember the address.”
“Yeah.”
“See you at home Coach. Bye.”
Rishi stood under a tree, he was watching children running out of school, in happiness and making noise.
Fulka called, “You OK Coach.”
“Who are you?”
“I am your friend Fulka, we live together in a same home, Remember.”
“Oh yeah! You are Fulka the stockbroker, who ran away with my wife.”
“Coach, you never had a wife.”
“You can keep her.”
“Coach, where are you?”
Two dogs were fighting. Rishi said, “Remember dogcatchers, where they bring all the dogs. I am there, looking for my dog.”
“Go home Coach, we will find your dog when we get home.”
“I will appreciate that.”
“Look for an auto-rickshaw and let me talk with the driver.”
“I will take bus.”
“OK take bus, I will call you again.”
Rishi took bus and arrived at the home at 5pm.
Kulcha called, “Coach where you are?”
“I am at our home.”
“What is the color of our living room walls?”
“Light blue.”
“Good, vary good. Now tell me, how many windows I have in my room.”
“Two.”
“Good, vary good. Thank God you are in the right home.”

Rishi opened his emails; there were two emails, both from the same company where Jantilal Kantilal Desai aka Kulcha worked.
First email had Ryan’s yahoo email id and his password was ‘gladiators99’.
Second email had Nancy’s hotmail email id, and her password was ‘punkprincess123’
By the time around at 6.30 pm his housemates begun arriving one by one, Rishi knew what type of person was Ryan and what Ryan and Nancy were up to and why Nancy was writing him emails. Ryan had relations with hundreds of girls, each day he was writing at least twenty love and poetry dipped emails, to many girls. Many emails indicated that he was a drug addict.
Did Cynthia tell Nancy at the Christmas party that she was HIV positive? Rishi did not think so. Was Cynthia HIV positive? Rishi did not think so. Was she HIV positive but unaware? Rishi did not think so.
In many emails Ryan gave his phone number to woman, Rishi noted that number.
Relation with many women and drug use was directing Rishi to only one possibility: That Ryan was HIV positive, wanted to pass his disease to Cynthia and then.........
That’s what Rishi saw on Ryan’s face in his picture. A Picture speaks thousand words.
Rishi asked himself, “Am I sure?”
Answer came from inside, “No.”
“Now what do I do?” Rishi was pondering when his housemates came in the home one after other. Each one saw him from head to foot, each one asked same question, “How are you now.”
Kulcha asked, raising his four fingers, “How many fingers are standing.”
“Four.”
Fulka asked, what is our address?
Kulfa asked him his name.
One after another question followed, finally they were satisfied that their Coach is normal.
“What happened, Coach?”
“I think it was that liquor, we had last night,” Rishi said, “it was hot stuff, heat got trapped inside my head, and you know ……. I went to dogcatcher’s yard.”
Kulcha said, “You came to my office first with an nuclear device sized book in your pocket.”
“I did?”
“Yes you did, Coach. Don’t you remember?”
“Nobody tells me anything.”
Kulfa brought a crate of beers in his car’s trunk, to celebrate, took Fulka to his car to help him to carry it to home.
Each was having a beer except Kulcha, he said, “We have decided against drinking.”
Fulka asked Rishi, “Then how the heat trapped in your head vented out.”
“I think I drank phenyl and threw up several times, all heat escaped.”
At their third beer, Fulka said to Rishi, “With due respects, I do not believe even a single word you said today, Coach.”
Kulfa said, “Yes-yes, me too. What Coach is saying is all baloney.”
“We discussed this and arrived at this conclusion that you fooled me, and made me do what I would never have done.”
Fulka asked, “Who are this ‘We’”
“Who else, I am Kalpana.”
“Kulcha, what did Coach made you do today?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
Fulka said, “That liquor made our Coach a pathetic liar.”
They laughed for very long.
They again made Kulcha serve them dinner.

8

Alarm Clock woke up Cynthia at 6am. She was used to setup alarm-clock for 6am, then bath, she jogged for fifteen minutes on beach, tried Vipassana meditation on her deck but gave up her efforts and spend one hour looking at the surrounding becoming alive in the morning, spent twenty minutes to prepare, had a bagel in the car on the way to hospital where she worked; arrived there at 8.50am. She had no time to check the emails. Clinic was full of patients, most of them her regulars who refused to see the doctor who was her back up, but only waited for her. She was happy and compassionate with her patients, talked and laughed with children.
At lunch break, she went to Dr. Ryan’s office; he was suppose to be at work but discovered that he was suspended for a day, due to medical negligence. On the way to cafeteria for lunch she called him.
“Hello Ryan, how are you?”
“Thanks for calling Cynthia, I am fine. How are you?”
“I am good; I went to your office and heard the news, what happened?”
“Oh it was nothing, last night I was sick, some food poisoning etc., went to bathroom, and the patient woke up and in the spasms punctured his own lung.”
“Oh! Are you OK now?”
“Yeah-yeah, I am OK now.”
“I guess there will be some investigations.”
Ryan already played his charms on the Chief Surgeon, who was a middle aged woman. He was recalled on the work and no action was being taken against him.
“Oh no, there would be no investigations. I will be arriving at work tomorrow morning; they gave me a day off.”
“Thank God. Ryan. I got to go.”
“Oh yeah, Cynthia, your friend Rishi emailed me, sent me his pictures. It is so nice of him.”
“Oh! He never sent me his pictures, please forward me his email.”
“Sure. What else?”
“Ryan, what are you doing in the evening?”
“Honey, from now on my time is yours. Let’s go to a park in the evening, we will have quiet quality time with each other.”
“Thanks, so sweet of you.” Cynthia said, “Rishi is coming here at SFO, at Sunday 10.30am. I want you to come with me to receive him. He wants to meet you.”
“Sure, we can do that.”
“Love you Cynthia. Bye.”
“Love you Ryan. Bye.”

9

Ryan ended the call and thanked God because the girl from the supermarket was with him since morning; she was in the bathroom, taking a bath. When she arrived in the morning, he was high with cocaine and forgot to use condom.
Who cares?
His mind was elated with Cynthia’s approval of spending evening with him. He will take her to park, they will walk around and then he will take her to a quiet place, give her a massage on the neck.
Hope all goes well today, a drop of my blood in her body.
If all goes well, he will not be joining her, at the airport to receive this bum Rishi. He will make some excuse, why spend unnecessary time with this flat sad girl.