Sleeping Beauty, Forever

By Gaayathri Arasakumar

Possible Ideas 

1. Twisted Fairytales 

2. Flash fiction - short stories with powerful impact

The last message: A character finds a final, unsent text message on their deceased parent's phone. The message is to someone they've never heard of, and it simply says, "The key is under the loose tile in the bathroom." The story could be about what they do next, and what they hope to find.

A quiet invention: In a world where every sound has been weaponized, an inventor creates a device that can only produce silence. The story could focus on the moment they successfully test it for the first time, and the profound, dangerous relief it brings to the characters who hear—or don't hear—it.

The city of forgotten things: A character who works in a massive warehouse of lost and found items from a magical metropolis finds a small, unassuming box. When they open it, they find something that belonged to them, something they didn't even realize they had lost, and it changes everything about their life.

The last photograph: An old photographer who has spent their life documenting a desolate, futuristic city develops a photo that shows a lush, green forest where the city's central spire should be. The story focuses on the photographer's internal conflict: Do they share the photo and risk everything, or keep the only proof that the world was once different?

A message in a bottle: A deep-sea diver finds a sealed glass bottle while exploring a newly discovered shipwreck. Inside is a perfectly preserved note with a single line of code that, when entered into an old terminal, unlocks a hidden truth about the society's history.

The quiet collector: A person who is legally blind collects sounds instead of objects. They have a device that records and plays back specific noises: the final call of a rare bird, the laugh of a lost loved one, or the sound of the first rain on a colony world. One day, a new sound appears in their collection, one they have never heard before. The story is about their journey to find its source.

The last book. The main character is a librarian in a post-literate society. No one reads or writes anymore, and the only "books" left are digital, holographic experiences. One day, a child brings them a tattered, handwritten journal they found in a forgotten attic. The story focuses on the librarian trying to decipher the ancient script and what they find hidden within the pages.

The quiet goodbye. A character has the ability to see a person's life flash before their eyes—not their own, but someone else's, moments before that person dies. They can't stop it or change it, they just witness it. The story focuses on a specific moment when they witness the final memories of a stranger and realize those memories are of them.

A new language. In a world where people communicate entirely through a complex, silent sign language, a child is born who can only speak. The story is about the parents' struggle to understand what the child is trying to say, and the moment the child speaks their first, unintelligible word.

he locked garden: A gardener is hired to tend to a mysterious, walled garden that is said to have been abandoned for years. The only rule is that they can never touch the single, thorny rose bush in the center. The story focuses on the gardener's growing obsession with the rose and the moment they finally, defiantly touch it.

The last transmission: A lone signal-listener in a remote arctic station picks up a faint, human-like voice from a completely uninhabited region of the ice. It's a distress call, but the words are ancient, and the voice sounds impossibly close. The story focuses on the listener's chilling realization of where the voice is coming from.

A quiet house: A real estate agent, showing a seemingly perfect house, notices that all of the mirrors in the home are covered or removed. When they try to uncover one, they see a reflection of themselves that isn't quite right—it's smiling, even though they aren't. The story could be about the reflection's attempt to switch places.

Sleeping Beauty

I slumped lazily on the chair, next to the bed. The fatigue was quickly enveloping me. A quick glance at the white clock hanging on the wall exhausted me even further as I realised there were still three long, painful hours before I could clock out. Deciding to rest my heavy eye lids for a while, I put my clipboard on my lap. It was not long before I drifted off into slumber, albeit a light one. I was not in the place for deep slumber, not with this job.

Moments of peace and quiet washed over me for what felt like a few seconds, before I heard the squeaking of the door. Jerking my eyes open, I sat up immediately, trying desperately to make clear my blurred vision so that I could take a look at the intruder who disturbed the precious sleep I managed to get in between my shifts. Looking up at the door, I saw the same beautiful man I had been seeing for the past four months coming through the door. He was as handsome as I had remembered him to be.

“Hi, Mr Menon!” I whispered emphatically as I rose to my feet. Sleep could wait. Was there anything more important than the man standing in front of me? As he closed the door gently behind him, he flashed me a brilliant smile, all thirty-two teeth pearly white. My eyes fell gently to the right side of his face where a gentle dimple appeared. It was both shocking and pleasurable to me that I had memorised almost his entire face within the past few months. Love was a funny thing, wasn’t it?

“Hi, Doctor Ananya. Hope you managed to catch some sleep,” He replied softly as he approached the bed, taking his usual confident strides. 

“But, please! Please call me Suthev! There’s no need to be so formal!” Mr Menon added when he was a few steps closer to me. Nodding at him, I moved away from the bed as I wanted to give him some space. My back turned, I heard his feet shuffle towards the bed. It was time, once again, for a cruel reminder, a cruel reminder of my fate. 

Finding myself some space in the far corner of the room, I shifted my eyes away as I saw Suthev watch the gorgeous woman lying on the bed in front of him. She had the consciousness of a dead plant and yet, she radiated like sun, a stark contrast to the dull grey and white sheets she lay upon. Her glow lit up the room. The exquisite features that made up her face could not be diminished even with the scratches that specked her face. Her beauty really was out of this world. 

The images of her limp and bloodied body being rushed into the emergency ward at the stroke of midnight on the twentieth of April flooded my mind. I was about to leave the emergency ward for my birthday celebrations when the call had come in. Minutes later, they had rolled her into the emergency ward. Even with a battered face and cuts all over her body, the woman had looked divine. She was perhaps the closest to Urvashi, the apsara, famed for her ethereal beauty, who I had read about in my teenage years when I was a voracious reader. Her beauty was unparalleled. Pangs of jealousy hit me hard as I jumped to save her life that seemed to be slipping away. 

The soft squeak of the chair against the cold floor shattered my train of thoughts. Peeking at the couple, my jealousy struck once again. As Suthev placed her hand into his, his already alluring face became even more beautiful. I kept my eyes lowered as he pulled the chair to sit comfortably by her side, but I knew what he was about to do next. Bringing her hand to his lips with his left hand, he placed his right softly on the burgundy strands of silk-like hair that sprawled across the white pillow. Suthev caressed the top of her head wrapped in bandages delicately and started whispering lightly into her ears. 

Even though he spoke in the lowest of volumes, I could catch each and every word of his. It was no challenge, though. These were the same words he cooed into her ear every time he visited her. Nothing had changed in the past four months. 

“Hi, my love. Can you hear me, Meera? Tell me you can hear my voice, my love,” The words tumbled out of his beautiful mouth and flew gently into her ear, though he knew in his heart that the words would not reach her brain. From where I stood, I could see clearly how tightly he had gripped her hand. He must really miss her. 

I did not want to intrude on their private moment and busied myself with the pretence of looking at my clipboard containing her test results. My eyes fell on her name. Meera Menon, the woman who lay on the hospital bed, a thirty-one year old with her whole life ahead of her, came into the National University Hospital’s emergency ward after an accident with a cement mixer left her bleeding out from her head. The wretched accident had taken away the life of her seven-week old fetus and had almost snuffed out hers. Her blessed fate had allowed her to be brought into the emergency ward of the hospital, NUH, where I had worked, within ten minutes of the accident, saving her from bleeding to death. My team and I gave our fullest, but there was only so much a human could do. 

Insyirah from the Obstetrics & Gynaecology department could not save her baby despite her various attempts and Joshua, my partner, and myself worked overtime to stop the bleeding in her brain. We had been successful for a while but our, and Suthev’s, hopes were shattered and Meera had fallen into a deep coma.

The scene of letting Suthev and Meera’s family know about her condition is one that would forever remain etched on my mind. Meera’s parents and in-laws were absolutely crushed and her mother wailed pitifully as her daughter’s mother-in-law hugged her in consolation. Meera’s father sobbed softly as we announced the demise of her unborn baby. Suthev broke down, falling heavily on the seat outside the emergency ward. It was only then that her father-in-law shared that Meera had conceived after three years of marriage. The news hit Suthev the hardest, naturally. He sat still for a few minutes before bursting into tears. He dropped his face into his hands and wept freely without care that he was surrounded by many people, his heart probably burdened with the terrible news concerning his wife.  

Though Joshua had been with me when we spoke to Meera’s family, I was the one to deliver the worst news to Suthev. Bringing him away from the rest of his family, I had to tell him how Meera was almost brain dead and that only a miracle would help her back on her feet, back to being an actual part of his life. She would not be able to hear him. She would not be able to stand up. She would not be able to move any part of her body. She would not be able to open her eyes. I will forever remember his distraught face. Even when twisted with absolute agony, his face was absolutely enchanting. 

Over the days, weeks, and months, my team continued to watch over Meera and that meant that I had the chance to watch Suthev love his wife. Everyday, without fail, he came to sit by her bed. He held her limp hand, and he kissed her bruised forehead. He brought her flowers she could not smell. He brought her favourite cookies that filled the plain room with aromas he hoped would wake her up, though she could not smell any of them. He played her songs, songs he told me she loved. He read her poetry she could not hear. Once I had even walked in on him weeping into her still shoulder, begging her to open her eyes at least once. He held her face several times in an hour, hoping she would stir, but of course, she did not.

It was obvious to anyone just how much he loved her. I heard Suthev Menon was the managing director of a well-known logistics company. How he found the time to sit idly by his wife, leaving behind the stress and strains of running a company was beyond me. Day in, day out, I saw Suthev Menon’s hopes rise as he waited for his beloved to arise. Unfortunately, his hopes were shattered, day in, day out. It broke my heart to see him trudge out of the specialised support ward at the end of day when nurses had to force him out. As a doctor, I had come across many couples, to one of whom I have had to deliver devastating news. Some took it hard while some took it easy. Yet, no one had ever been like Suthev Menon. I had not come across a man who had loved his wife so deeply. 

Watching a woman being loved so deeply despite being unconscious was such a slap in the face for me. A conscious woman, intelligent and successful, albeit not as beautiful, could not find a man who would take a second glance at her. Here was indeed sleeping beauty, awaiting for the kiss of fate to awake her so that she may be once again in the arms of her true love. Seeing Meera and her husband reminded me of one of the first things I read as a lovelorn teacher who was scorned by the star basketballer in school.

“And now it is clearly even more true — you can give me nothing now yet I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else — but I want you to stand there. You, dead, are so much better than anyone else alive.” wrote Richard Feynman in a letter to his deceased wife, sixteen months after she was taken away from him. What a love story, I thought to myself as a pathetic seventeen year-old whose unrequited love seemed like the world’s biggest problem as I struggled to get over the eighteen year-old captain of the RJC Basketball team who did not want a relationship as he had to ace the upcoming A level examinations. He never gave me another look till he graduated, and when he finally did eight months later, he was lost to me forever. 

It was indeed a story like that of the Feynmans, this love the Menons held. Envy and bitterness grew within me every passing day. How could someone love like this? Was it possible to love so sefllessly? And why was it not me being loved this way? Was I not deserving of this? Was I not deserving of Suthev’s love? Was I not deserving of loving Suthev? Was I not deserving of being the woman who possessed the wonderfully handsome and loving Suthev’s love? 

Was it revolting, though? This pitiful love I held in my heart for another woman’s husband? With each passing day, I had hoped that Suthev would lose interest in this sleeping beauty, instead looking at what was well and alive right in front of him. Somehow, I had become obsessed with the possibility of Mrs Menon becoming a thing of his past, and me taking over the spot. It was disgusting, no doubt, but wasn’t all fair in love and war?

“Meera, my love. Please tell me you can hear me. Tell me you love me, just like you did a hundred times a day. I love you, Meera. Tell me you can hear me,” Suthev pleaded in a voiceless whisper, bringing me back to reality. Though I possessed a stoic exterior, my heart ached at the desperation in his voice. How much did this man love her that he implored her everyday to awake and hold him? My heart ached at his desperate sorrow. I wanted to hug the despondency out of him. 

He hoped the words coming out of his mouth would reach her brain, and so he desperately tried to get to the depths of her soul, just so she would arise. I felt pity for the man. No one should ever be this lost in love. Imagine watching the love of your life in front of you, being nothing more than a bag of bones and flesh. He hoped and hoped desperately that his sweet, honey and love-coated words would reach her ears, her head, and her heart. 

I knew, though, the words had not reached her ears, head, or heart. I knew that no matter how much he tried, whatever he did or said would not reach. I knew, not anyone else, only I knew that Meera Menon was far gone. There was almost zero percent chance that she would awake. Perhaps, if fate was kind, she stood a 0.1 percent chance of ever arising and speaking to her wonderful husband and returning to the marital bliss they seemed to have shared for the past three years. 

But, there was utterly no way I would be able to tell Suthev this. It would break his heart, break his soul even, to know that his wife may be closer to death than returning home, well and alive. I stood silently, watching him hold her body close to him. I burned with envy as I pictured myself in her place, in his strong arms, inhaling the spicy scent, a wonderful mix of musk and vetiver, that always seem to hang heavily around him. 

Just as he always did every morning before heading off to work, he placed a soft kiss on her head as he gently placed it on the soft pillow. Adjusting the sheets to cover every inch of her exposed skin except her face, he made sure she was comfortable. What a joke, I thought to myself. It made no difference to Meera whether she was covered till her neck, or basking in the hot sun, or was dropped into a freezing lake. It did not even matter if she was thrown off a cliff. It would make absolutely no difference to her. It would make a difference only to me. It would make a difference only to Suthev. 

“Goodbye, Doctor Ananya! I will catch you later,” Suthev uttered under his breath as he gently tapped my shoulder. I felt my skin tingle with pleasure despite the layer of cloth that stood obstructively inbetween my bare skin and his long, slender fingers. Nodding cheerfully at him, I waited for him to take his leave from the room. As he stepped out of the room, I sprang to close the ward door behind him just as I did every morning after he left. 

I sauntered towards the bed where the lovely Meera Suthev Menon lay, almost lifeless. Looking down at her, my heart pounding wildly with envy, anger, and a tinge of apathy. What breathtaking beauty this woman possessed! Unfortunate that she was now merely a sleeping beauty. Life was no fairy tale, was it? Cruel how she lay here pathetically, at the mercy of another human being, with a man desperately in love with her, yearning for her to gain consciousness. Was there really a God? Was He really God, He who played such savage, brutal games with the purest of love? Did it matter anymore that she was a ravishing beauty?

“What sad, twisted fate you have, princess, with the loveliest of princes for a husband, yet stuck in this cold bed, far away from the warmth of your beloved husband,” I whispered to her as I picked up her right hand, the one that was still warm from Suthev’s touch. I took one quick glance at the door behind me. 

As I held her hand with my right hand, marvelling at the softness of her supple skin, I used my left hand to reach into my pocket. Retrieving the carefully hidden syringe filled with the colourless liquid, I switched her hand for the syringe. Steadying my right hand, I matched the tip of the sharp needle of the syringe to the cannula that had been stuck to one of Meera’s veins in her hand. In a swift push, I pumped the liquid straight into the cannula before pulling the syringe back and quickly stuffing it back into the left pocket of my scrubs. 

It would only be a few minutes before the cocktail of liquids would work their magic. Dropping her hand nonchalantly back onto the bed, I turned away from her while reaching out for the sanitiser that sat at the edge of the hospital bed. Scrubbing my hands vigorously, I walked away from the bed, fury slowly but surely rising within me. It disgusted me that I had to touch every damn day. Leaning against the door, I turned back to the bed. 

“A matter of days before you disappear once and for all from my life. From my life and from Suthev’s life, princess!” I hissed at her. I knew she could not hear me and that triggered a snigger from me. It was only now that I could let my real feelings out. 

I knew she could not hear me. The potent, magical cocktail of barbiturates, propofol, and midazolam, all of which are responsible for reductions in cerebral metabolism and cerebral blood flow that I had carefully snuck from the hospital’s Pharmaceutical Processing Research Laboratory and created would work wonders in keeping her deaf, dumb, and almost dead. It was only a matter of perhaps ten or eleven more administration of this concoction before her brain would completely shut down. And then, Suthev would be mine. Suthev would be mine forever and ever. Sniggering one more time at the almost lifeless body of Meera, I turned around and let myself out of the room. I had enough of her for the day. 

As I scrolled back to my office, I recalled Suthev’s face that morning. He had looked amazing in the maroon shirt he wore. What a striking man he was! What love he was capable of! Love that would soon be mine. Love that I had deserved for years, from the man who owned my heart. 

Within minutes, I was back in the confines of my office, with the liberty of being my truest self. I gently placed my stethoscope on the table and pulled out the used syringe. I wrapped it in some tissue and immediately dropped into my handbag. Within an hour or two, it would melt into nothingness when I set it ablaze back at home.

I turned to the set of drawers at the side of my desk. Pulling a drawer out, I picked up a little gold-coloured photo frame. Holding it tightly in the palms of hands, I brought frame close to my lips. Smothering it with kisses, I took a deep breath in. 

“It is only a matter of time, my love. Only a matter of time before you and I get together for eternity!” I said with a wide smile. 

“Soon, the sleeping beauty would be dead and she would no longer stand in our way. And we will be together for ever!” I whispered lovingly at the photo. 

Looking closely at the photo, I realised that there was a tiny hole at the side of the photo in the frame. It made me upset, but I had to rationalise with myself. It was afterall a fifteen-year old. A fifteen-year old photo of the handsome eighteen year-old captain of the RJC Basketball team back in 2010 who had broken my heart unknowingly then. The only photo I had managed to keep of the first and only boy who had ever stolen my heart. Yet, I found comfort in the knowledge that soon, I would replace this fifteen-year old photo of the charming Suthev Menon  with a brilliant photo of him now. And, this time, he would not be just the basketball captain I had a crush on who left me pining for him. This time, he would be the man I gave my heart, mind, and body to.

By Gaayathri Arasakumar