Dead Man On a Sick Leave
A sick day, a thousand lies, and one man who discovered the most fatal disease of all—his own excuses.
“So, are you coming?” Ravi’s phone buzzed like mosquitoes on the sweets.
He was half-dead after another long day at the office. His ever-demanding wife hadn’t made things easier either. He ignored the phone and drifted into sleep.
But the buzzing wouldn’t stop. Eyes half-shut, he typed something back and collapsed again like an iPhone battery that charges for one minute and dies for ten.
The next morning, his friend Arun called. “I’ll pick you up in an hour,” he said, sounding more excited than a dog on a water slide.
“Why?” Ravi asked, still brushing his teeth. “I have an office, remember?”
Arun gasped. “Then why did you agree to come for a day party? We even made reservations for you!”
Ravi tried to make sense of the words. He quickly checked his phone—and coughed the fluid in his mouth all over the mirror. Droplets slid down the glass like sweat on people’s shirts in Mumbai locals.
He read the reply again. He had agreed to spend the entire day with his friends at a day party.
Then he remembered the two big meetings at work. And the evening shopping promised to his wife. Both non-negotiable. Panic sweat joined the spit-sweat on the mirror. He wiped them with the same towel and tried to think.
“Everyone’s right, man. You’ve changed,” Arun’s voice cut through his thoughts. The words hit something deep—his fragile ego.
Ravi stared at his reflection. Changed? Maybe. He used to be fun in college. Now he was boring, cautious. Safe.
Worst of all—he no longer used his most valued skill: lying.
Of course, he remembered why. His boss had fired people for minor lies. His wife had broken his finger once when she caught him fibbing.
But Arun was right. He had changed. And today, he decided, he’d change back.
He called Arun. “Pick me up.”
Then he stared at his laptop, sighed, and sent his boss a WhatsApp:
Sir, high fever. Won’t be able to come today. The doctor said, complete bed rest.
Five minutes later, the reply came:
Take care. Get well soon.
Ravi smirked. Too easy.
He packed jeans and a T-shirt into his office bag, sprayed enough deodorant to kill mosquitoes in three districts, and left wearing formal clothes.
At the door, his wife stopped him. “Be back on time.”
“I might be late. Big meetings today. Can we go tomorrow?” he said, already halfway out in case she threw something.
“Be here at 5 p.m. sharp,” she warned, snapping an okra in half like it was his neck.
Ravi swallowed, nodded, and ran to Arun’s car.
***
Ravi and his friends went straight to the food court. His idea—he didn’t want to die on an empty stomach in case he got caught.
At the mall, he ordered popcorn, nachos, burgers, and a filthy-tasting cold drink. Then he stuffed the nachos into the burger, dipped it in the cola, and munched like a king on sick leave. The popcorn became a side dish—he tossed bits into his mouth and his friends’.
They clicked selfies for Instagram—careful not to show Ravi’s face—and sipped the cola he hated.
Then a voice made the nacho freeze in his throat.
“Ravi?”
It was his boss, standing two tables away, holding a slice of pizza.
Ravi coughed, as if he could make both the nachos and his boss disappear. His mind raced like a Google search engine. Fever, doctor, bed rest—how could he explain nachos and denim in a mall?
“Sir!” Ravi croaked, clutching his throat. “I came… to buy medicine.”
His boss narrowed his eyes. “From KFC?”
Ravi glanced around desperately, searching for a medical shop. Then he remembered his greatest skill—he could always lie. He turned back to the table and put a hand on Arun’s arm. “One of my friends—Arun here—is dying in a month.” He patted Arun as though comforting him, while Arun’s eyes nearly popped out.
Ravi nodded and pointed at Arun again, trying to shift his boss’s attention away from himself and onto his “dying” friend. “So all of us are giving him a goodbye by eating his favourite food all at once.” He lifted the burger—stuffed with nachos and dripping cola—and offered it to his boss.
His boss looked at the damp burger, then at Arun, as if weighing how to reject a dying man’s last meal. “What’s wrong with your friend?” he asked, breaking off the tiniest piece of the burger—so small his nail could have scratched it off.
Ravi closed his eyes and pinched his lips—partly to think, partly to look sad. Arun and the others leaned forward eagerly. “Stomach cancer,” Ravi finally said, opening his eyes and nodding while patting Arun’s shoulder.
Arun, the boss, and the rest stared at the burger in their hands, unsure if that had caused the cancer.
“I came here to buy medicine but met Arun. So we decided to give him a funeral… sorry, a farewell.” Ravi swallowed the guilt with a gulp of water.
The boss nodded, patted Arun, wished him luck, and turned to go.
“Sir, can we have a picture with you?” Ravi asked quickly. “Since you were here for the farewell… we’ll remember this day forever when Arun is gone after his stomach explodes.”
So they clicked the picture, but Ravi made sure he wasn’t visible in it. Everyone pulled sad faces, as if they really were giving Arun a farewell. Except Ravi—he had his thumb up. For anyone else looking at the photo, he might appear like a ghost in a red shirt, floating a thumbs-up with no face.
But as they left the mall, his phone rang. It was his wife. He checked the time—1 p.m. Nowhere close to the deadline he’d promised.
***
Ravi went to the quietest corner of the mall—the toilet—to pick up his wife’s call. “Yes, honey.”
“Are you at the mall?” Her voice was tense. That wasn’t a good sign. Ravi quickly checked if his friends had posted pictures on Instagram, even after he told them not to. They had—but luckily, he wasn’t visible.
“No… I’m at the office. Why would you say that?” Ravi tried to sound irritated. It didn’t work.
“Then why is your boss with your friends? And who’s that person beside him wearing a red T-shirt like yours?”
Ravi froze. He’d forgotten about his boss in the picture. Now his wife was thinking like Sherlock Holmes.
“Ravi?” she pressed.
He didn’t know what to say—until he remembered how anger always worked for his father, his boss, and most other men he knew.
“You think I’m the only person in the world with a red T-shirt?” Ravi snapped. Acting angry came naturally—after all, she gave him enough torture. He just had to recall it. “Do you even know why my boss is there with my friends?”
That was a rhetorical question, but she simply said, “No.”
Ravi stalled, searching for another excuse, another lie—just as a man farted loudly in the adjacent toilet. He clamped his nose with one hand, holding his breath. “Okay… I’ll tell you. But prepare yourself.”
He braced himself—not for his wife’s reaction, but for the smell that still seeped into his skull, paralysing his nose.
She only said, “Hmm,” like she’d already prepared a noose.
Just then, the farting man flushed. Ravi visualised the obvious next step and felt like puking. Then the man flushed again—so loud that for a moment Ravi thought someone had connected it directly to the sea. If that were true, he promised himself never to dip in the sea again.
“Are you in the toilet? With your phone? Talking to me?” she snapped. She hated it. Ravi loved it—it was his private time. But not anymore, not after the flushing memory clogged in his mind unlike the toilet drainage.
“Yes, because what I’m about to tell you is a secret,” he said, rushing out and into the fire escape. He inhaled deeply, trying to calm his breath and his brain.
“Secret?” his wife asked, like Ravi was the villain in a daily soap.
“Look…” Ravi steadied his breath to say what he never dreamt he would. “My boss isn’t well. He’s… dying in a month.”
“What?” Her voice sounded surprisingly happy.
Ravi knew she must already be picturing shopping, vacations, and a husband suddenly free to do chores once his boss died.
“What disease?” she asked, almost excited.
Ravi searched his mind for a disease that sounded curable. But only one came up. “Stomach cancer,” he blurted—and regretted it immediately. “That’s why he’s having fun at the mall.”
There was a pause. Something felt off. “Honey?” he asked.
“It still doesn’t make sense why you’re not there with him when he’s with your friends.”
Ravi scratched his head, pacing in the narrow stairwell, sweating. He needed another excuse, another lie.
“Look, I didn’t want to tell you. But…”
“But?”
“Arun is dying too. In a month. Stomach cancer.” He wiped his temple. “That’s why I suggested my boss and Arun have fun together while I finish his work in the office.”
There was silence. Then, faintly, he heard a shriek—like someone dancing. He remembered how much his wife hated Arun for dragging him to dinners once in a blue moon.
Clearly, she was celebrating. Ravi cut the call and, along with his friends, headed to their next favourite place—the bar.
***
After drinking like he had stomach cancer himself, Ravi checked his watch. It read 7 p.m. All the drowsiness from the alcohol flushed out of his body at once.
He grabbed his phone—his wife had called fifty times in the last two hours. Ravi knew that even if his friend Arun and his boss somehow survived the fake stomach cancer, he wouldn’t.
He quickly changed back into his office wear and headed straight home.
At the door, he found a note: “Going to your boss’ house. Pick me up from there.”
Ravi broke into a flood of sweat as he read it. He remembered his boss’s wife and his own wife were good friends. Of course—his wife must have gone to pay a courtesy visit after hearing his boss was “dying.” Not to comfort the boss’s wife, but to enjoy how God had avenged her by blocking his shopping sessions.
He limped near the door, racking his brain for an excuse, a lie that might save him. Then something clicked. He pulled out his phone, texted his boss immediately, and rushed to his house.
***
Ravi called his wife out of the house. She kept insisting on meeting his boss, but he refused, saying he’d had enough of him for one day.
As she walked toward the car, she paused and gave him a stare. Ravi felt she could burn him alive with it, even through the car window. He hurried to open the door for her, then quickly slipped into the driver’s seat.
Before she could thrash him for missing the shopping appointment, Ravi blurted, “Look, I’m sorry. First, I had to work late finishing the boss’s work. Second, I got late buying this for you.” He pulled out a box and handed it to her.
She snatched it, teeth clenched. But as soon as she opened it, her anger melted. She smiled.
Ravi knew. It was the necklace she’d always wanted. He’d avoided buying it for years, thinking she was crazy to want something so expensive. But now, it had saved him.
“Thanks a lot, Ravi,” she said softly.
He nodded and started driving.
“Your boss and his wife were acting strange,” she said, admiring the necklace in the mirror.
“Strange?” Ravi glanced at her from the corner of his eye.
“Yes. Almost like I was the one with a disease, not him.”
Ravi coughed, gulped some water, and pressed harder on the accelerator.
***
The next day at the office, the boss called him in. “How are you feeling today?”
“Good, sir,” Ravi smiled.
“Here, take this number.” He handed him a card. Ravi glanced at it—it was a doctor’s clinic.
“What for, sir?”
The boss stood up, put his hands on Ravi’s arms as if comforting him. “He’s the best stomach cancer specialist in town. Take your friend and your wife to him.”
Ravi swallowed hard and nodded.
“Good that you messaged me yesterday about her cancer.” The boss patted his arm.
Ravi lowered his head to fake grief.
“By the way, your wife acted strange yesterday,” the boss continued. “She kept talking as if I had cancer, not her.” He frowned.
Ravi’s mind scrambled. For a second, even he lost track of who he’d given cancer to. Then he blurted, “Her cancer has spread to her brain. She hallucinates now.”
Before the boss could react, Ravi faked a cry and rushed out of the cabin.
Outside, his phone buzzed. A text from his wife: “You gave me the necklace from your mother. You are dead now.”
Ravi froze. He remembered—he had borrowed his mother’s necklace instead of buying her a new one.
He staggered, checked his pulse, then his temple. “Oh God,” he whispered, “I’ve got cancer of the lies and it's killing me.”
He rang Arun. “Let’s party harder today. I’m dying within a day."
"What about your office?" Arun sounded confused.
Ravi gasped as if it was his last breath." I’m a dead man—on a sick leave!”
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