She must have been quite pretty. I hadn’t noticed her much in the office but then, I had joined only a week ago. But I had seen her a few times. In fact, I had seen her only a few minutes ago-talking coquettishly to a colleague of mine. But now, all that I could see in her eyes was terror. That, and the reflected glow of the burning building behind my back. But I am getting incoherent again. I’ll try to start at the beginning.
I didn’t know what hit me, or rather, hit us when the fire started. One moment ago we were working peacefully in our cubicles and the next moment there was a fire alarm blaring at full volume, everyone was rushing towards the fire escape, blocks of burning plywood were falling all over the place – adding fuel to the already raging fire. It was a pandemonium I never thought possible. I wasn’t one of the first to get out. Considering my physical fitness, I was probably one of the last people who came out alive of that inferno.
Just when I reached the door, I heard a crash and a scream behind me. It was as if a bulky object had crashed on someone trying to get out. Instinctively, I turned around and looked in that direction. It was then that I saw her. That face will remain etched in my memory for ever.
Her hair was slightly burnt. Her face was black with soot. A pillar had fallen on her left leg and pinned her to the floor but otherwise she seemed unhurt. She was close enough for me to go there. I don’t know what it was that made me go near her-maybe it was my humanity to save a fellow being in distress, maybe it was pure curiosity – I don’t know what it was and never will.
She didn’t see me approach until I got very near. She was too busy trying to release herself from the pillar to notice me. When I reached her, she turned around and I could see the terror, panic and distress in her eyes. What I saw in that one moment can not be described even in a thousand words. It was then that I realized how much we fear death. But the next moment there was hope and joy in her eyes. She must have thought that I would rescue her. And it was exactly then that I suddenly became fully aware of the mortal danger I was in. As I turned to run away I imagined her eyes return from hopeful to panic-stricken. But now there was a new emotion mixed with panic-disgust.
I ran as fast as I could into the safe hands of the crowd and the fire-fighters, imagining the eyes following me and hoping against hope that someone would save her but it was not to be.
The fire that gutted our two-storied office building claimed five lives. She was one of the two women who died. She had been a secretary in the marketing department, fresh out of college. She had been barely twenty-two when she died. I came to know all this through the newspaper and my colleagues.
I frequently think of her. Was she an open-hearted kind person or was she a snob? Did she have some talents no one realized? Had she too hoped of making in big in the world like we all do in our youth? What did her parents do? Did she belong to a well-to-do family or had she joined this firm to sustain her economic condition? How would she have treated me if I had talked to her in the office? Did she have a boyfriend or a fiancé? And most importantly, how would she have reacted had she been in my place and I hers? Would she have run away like I did or would she have tried to rescue me? A thousand such questions keep running through my mind all day. They have driven me to distraction. I forget to have a shower, go to the office-the new office, and even to have food. I wish someday I might forget to breathe and then all my troubles will end, but that doesn’t seem to happen.
Why did this happen to me? Weren’t there other people who left her dying when they ran out to save their precious lives? Shouldn’t they have tried to help her? Is it not their fault also that she is dead? Then why is it me only who has these questions in his mind? Why is it me who is driven to distraction thinking of her? Why is it me who can feel her eyes following me wherever I go? Why? Oh, why?
This is why I have decided to end this. Whenever and whoever gets this letter, let him know that I was a coward who didn’t even try to save a person from death. Maybe I could have saved her and maybe not. But it is impossible to live with the feeling that I did not even try. That is why I am bringing death upon myself. No one other than me is responsible for my death and the girl now dead.
I hope to meet her once before I am consigned to burn forever in hell. I wish to tell her how sorry I am.
-- Abhay
