EXT. WASHINGTON.DC. EVENING
It was a normal windy evening in Washington as Mary Wallace walked into her favourite book store to pick up John Grisham’s latest book. Mary had always been a great fan of crime stories and read them within a day. She reached to the bestsellers shelf to pick a copy. However, there was only one copy left and a girl had already picked it up. Mary started to turn around when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
Mary: Umm, no that is fine. You had it first so you can take it.
Girl: Oh come on, you looked so disappointed when I picked it up. Please take this copy and you can buy me a coffee.
Mary (smiling): Wow that is a great deal. What is your name?
Girl: I am Sharon. Glad to meet you.
As Mary and Sharon made their way to the nearby café, Mary wondered why this stranger was being so friendly and kind to her. Kindness was hard for Mary to understand as she had never received it. On reaching the café, Sharon and Mary took a comfortable seat near the counter.
Sharon: So what do you do?
Mary thought of what this perky stranger would think if Mary were to tell her of her real occupation. “I am a freelance writer. I write for various travel and technical blogs”
Sharon: Wow! That is so exciting. I have always wanted to be a writer but can never get a sentence down. I am a teacher.
Mary: That is a very hard job. Helping to mould our future generations.
As they sat and chatted till, Mary had no clue this would be the start to a lifelong friendship.
That was five years ago. It was a serendipitous meeting and after just one meeting, the two became inseparable. They would go to plays and movies together. Many times during their friendship, Mary considered confiding in Sharon about her past, but something would stop her. Perhaps it was the fact that Sharon was the first person Mary had ever cared about her and losing her would be inconceivable.
Int. Mary’s Apartment. Washington
It was regular morning in Mary’s life. She woke up and turned on the coffee maker. Unlike other coffee drinkers, Mary found the act of making the coffee much more satisfying than drinking it. This is how all her life had been. She would imagine that she would love an event or a person or a thing. But once she got it, the satisfaction would slip away. She would soon realize she had been much happier while doing the action than reaping the benefits. However, Mary lived for the benefits and this contradiction made her life a nightmare. As the coffee beans churned, she look at the street below her and recoiled at the view of people smiling. Mary hated rich people and spent her time plotting to rob them or wanting to be them. She walked over to her study to check her emails. She would usually check her messages while having coffee and then plan the rest of her day depending on the workload. This morning, however, her eyes got distracted by a personal email from Sharon’s mother. Mary clicked on Sharon’s mother’s mail. As soon as she realised what the mail said, her coffee had already spilled on her carpet.
Dear Mary,
It saddens me to inform you that our dearest Sharon has met with an accident. This accident has caused her body to be paralysed. The doctors seem very uncertain about her recovery. I know how close you two are and thought you would want to know. We all need to pray for a miracle.
Love.
Mary walked over to the other side of the room and sat down on the cold floor. Mary was no stranger to road accidents. One of her uncles had been killed in one a couple of years earlier. But Mary was not an especially compassionate person. Most times, she did not understand another person’s grief. This is why it had been easy for her to dupe several of her “friends” and turn away from them. However, Sharon cared only for three people in the entire world. Her mother, Sharon and herself. Sharon was the only person except her mother who had truly made Mary happy. And now she lay in a hospital bed, disabled. The first thought Mary had was bake a cake. Sharon loved cakes that Mary would bake. She hurried to her kitchen and started baking the cake, all the while wondering if Sharon would ever be able to eat it.
Mary returned home the next day night. She had spent 40 hours at Sharon’s side. Her parents were devastated. Sharon lay immobile while her eyes spanned the room and every inch of Mary’s face. Mary knew what Sharon would have said if she could talk. She would say that Mary looked like sunshine today. That’s what Sharon always said to Mary each time they saw each other. Mary had heard the doctors explain how Sharon had very low chances of walking or talking again and it was possible that her vitals would should down completely. Mary spent that night lying awake on her bed. She was trying to feel the way Sharon would be feeling right now. All the things she wanted to do, build her own house and have lots of children, were things that would never happen again. Mary was a realist. She was very aware of all the bad things she had done in her life. All the people whose trust she had broken. Mary realised she wanted to be a millionaire when she was 15. She realised how much she wanted it when she started stealing from her friend and family. However, these small thefts were not enough for Mary. At 20, Mary had gotten involved with an underground gang and been a part of their biggest theft ever. They had robbed the old widow on their street who was a billionaire and an up class socialite. They had got into her house and stolen ten original renaissance paintings. This was the reason Mary hated art exhibitions; she did not like being reminded of that night. She had vanished from the city while incriminating her friend and roommate Kate. She never got to know what happened to Kate; she did not even try to find out as it could make people suspicious. She simply moved to a new city and created a new life. However, after Sharon’s accident something had changed far more than Mary realised that night.
Mary spent the next few months immersed in her writing. She was getting a lot of work and she carried her laptop to Sharon’s bedside and work there all day. While her visits to the hospital, Mary saw a lot of sick people sitting alone. Mary always wondered why no one came to see these people. Did they have no one who loved them, cared for them? She felt that no one should die alone or go through sickness without a friend or loved one. Mary was surprised by this thought. But she acted on it by visiting these people. She went to two old women who seemed to have distant looks on their faces. In all the months that Mary had been there they had had not a single visitor. Though these women could not talk, Mary would just sit by their sides. Sometimes she would look towards Sharon’s bed while sitting with the women; hoping that Sharon would look and smile at Mary for doing something unselfish. Three years passed with no change in Sharon’s condition. Her parents could not afford the hospital charges for much longer and the hospital began advising them to take Sharon off the life support machines. Mary wasn’t going to let that happen. She still had money from the robbery and told Sharon’s parents not to worry as she would take care of all the bills. Mary signed all the necessary papers and paid the hospital to prolong care for Sharon.
Int. Mary’s apartment. Chicago
Sharon’s 35th birthday arrived. Mary had planned to visit her on this day months in advance and had applied for a week’s leave. It had been nine years since Sharon’s accident and three years since Mary had moved to Chicago. She baked Sharon’s favourite cake and was getting ready to leave when there was a knock at her door. Mary knew who it was. As she opened the gate, two bright eyes stared back at her. It was her neighbour’s teenage daughter, Dorothy. Over the years Mary had formed a deep bond with the Parkin’s family. Dorothy sprung in and gave Mary a hug and handed her cookies for Sharon. The truth was that Dorothy had a very sick father. Mary had been woken up two years back with an urgent knocks on her door. Dorothy’s father had suddenly collapsed in his reading chair. Her mother was visiting her aunt and Dorothy was alone. Mary had taken Dorothy’s father to the hospital and sat by them as the doctor informed them that Mr Parkins had suffered a minor heart attack. From that day onwards Mary would visit the Parkins every weekend and spend a lot of time with Dorothy; in fact young Dorothy though of Mary as a sister.
As Mary entered the hospital, she smiled at everyone she saw. She was filled with feelings of compassion and empathy. She wanted to stop and speak to each and every patient and ask them how she could help them. These ten years had changed Mary so much that she was not the same person anymore. Although she still drank a lot and hated art events; her compassionate nature had been a gift from Sharon. Mary had begun to see herself in the role of a helper and she had acted on that impulse. Sharon had changed her life, both by entering it and when she suffered the accident. Mary’s difficulty in understanding why something so horrible would happen to such a good person had made Mary imbibe all of Sharon’s good qualities. The old Mary had died. There was no looking back for Mary anymore. She looked up at the skies and thanked God for who she had become.
