The man on the other side...

Sipping slowly from a cup of tea, thinking about nothing in particular and having nothing to do; here I was, sitting in this diner, looking at the rain pouring down. It was the rain in the first place, which pulled me to this town, so far from home and so far from family. I have always felt a connection with these droplets drizzling down and colouring everything a shade or two darker. This was my favourite place. The owner shared my passion for the rains and always played the songs I wanted to hear. In the background, was playing “Rhythm of the rain” by The Cascades. The day could not have started better.

Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain
Telling me just what a fool I've been
I wish that it would go and let me cry in vain
And let me be alone again

Oh, listen to the falling rain
Pitter patter, pitter patter
Oh, oh, oh, listen to the falling rain
Pitter patter, pitter patter

 

If there was one thing, other than the rain, which pulled to me to this town was that I was absolutely certain nobody knew me there. I was not running from someone or something. Rather I wanted to be in a place I didn’t need to think about running from. It was not easy, disappearing overnight, leaving no trail of where I went. Sometimes I think about the people I left behind, but that is a matter of past now. It seems like another life now. Now this was my home, my work and my life. Sitting in this corner and judging the world from here even though and because nobody cared about my opinions.

I was about to finish my third cup of tea since morning and had started writing a story on my laptop when I noticed the man across the diner on the other corner. There was something peculiar about his face, something very familiar. It was a smirk, a smirk I had only seen on one other face. Mine! I was told that I always had this on my face whenever I was on the verge of stumbling upon an idea to write a story. I was told so many times that I decided to see for myself, and I sat hours before a mirror while trying to write a story and finally I saw it. That’s why I remember it so clearly. There was no mistake. There was more that I had not noticed in first look. He was working on a laptop identical to mine, had a hairstyle same as mine and wore glasses with same frame as that of mine. In front of him on the table besides his laptop were three empty cups of tea.

I was getting curious now. I wanted to look at him closely. So I walked upto the other end of the diner and picked up newspaper from a table near his. He did not notice me at all. Almost everything was identical and still he was not me. He wore the same watch from the same brand, had a birthmark at the same place on his hand as that of mine and he looked outside the window at the rain every thirty seconds just like I do. I walked back to my seat. I could not concentrate on the story I was writing now. I made thumping sound on my table with my hand so that he looks at me, but he did not seem to notice. After a while, I grew impatient and decided to talk to him. I looked into my laptop and shut it down and got up to walk towards him. He wasn’t there anymore. I ran outside trying to figure out where he went. He could not have walked away so quickly. I stood in the rain trying to absorb what just happened with me.

So many days have passed since then, but I am not able to forget that incidence. I come to this diner everyday but he did not come back. I enquired about him in nearby places. This is a small town where everybody knows everybody. Any new visitor cannot go unnoticed, but this one had just vanished in this air. I gave up the search eventually figuring that it would be a coincidence that the man was wearing the same things and had same mannerisms as that of mine, in absence of an alternative logical explanation.

There was no rain one day. So I did not feel like going outside. Sometimes you become so comfortable with a place that staying indoors feel odd. After all this was a place I only used for sleeping. The rain was back next day and so was I, at the diner. After I had my second cup of tea, I noticed that there was a person sitting on a table near mine and was looking at me continuously. When I looked at him and smiled, he gathered courage and approached me. He asked me whether I was a journalist. I said I was a suspense writer. He said that then what he was going to tell me next would excite me a lot. I was all ears expecting some old story I had already heard.

“I have noticed you many times sitting here engrossed in your work. You would not have noticed but even I come here daily at this time. There are only two seats with windows in this Diner and both are always occupied. Yesterday you did not come, so it was a good opportunity for me to sit here. I was enjoying my regular mug of beer enjoying the view outside and then I saw him. He was sitting across the diner on the other seat with the window. At first I only noticed his baldness pattern which was same as mine but then I saw his moustache, his poncho and the bag in which he was carrying the carpentry tools. They were all same as that of mine. I saw him up and close. It was as if somebody had made a bad copy of me. Everything about him reminded me of myself but his face. There was something different about his face. I wanted to talk to him but he just disappeared. I asked my mother whether I had a twin brother, but it turns out I don’t. What do you make of this, Mr Suspense Writer” he said. I did not blink my eyes even for a moment or at least I don’t remember if I did.

Now was the time to talk to the owner of the Diner once again. It was too much of a coincidence and the writer in me was crying for an explanation. The owner was a respectable gentleman. He requested me not to spread such rumours or people will stop coming there. I know he was right. “I will not tell anyone but if this is true, then people will notice anyways one day. Have you thought about it?” I asked him. He said he does not know anything about this man. I tried to calm him down and asked him whether he started this diner. He said his father did. His father was alive and went for a walk everyday and so next morning I was out walking and waiting for him. He was a sweet gentleman and opened up quickly. He told me how his father had a modest beginning and opened a small sweet shop on this street. As a kid he knew everyone in the town and everyone treated like his own. He used to pass time in other shops everyday and especially in the one adjacent to theirs. “Which one?” I asked. “Ohh, it is part of our diner now. We bought the place after the owner died.” He said.

“I used to sit in that one for hours looking at myself” he said. I asked “looking at you in what?” “There was a large mirror on the wall, as large as the wall itself. I used to get lost in it. It amazed me to see how mirrors make a place look so large. But it was broken when we bought the place and diner was opened.” He said.

“How did the owner die?” I asked.

“He had a heart attack. He was sitting in a chair in the corner when we found out he was dead. His eyes were open and it seemed that he was looking at himself in the mirror.” he said.

Blood on her face..

When you stay alone, you develop a tendency of talking to yourself. I also narrate the incidents, frustrations and fears to keep myself entertained. Cooking for oneself, eating alone and then dragging oneself to bed night after night becomes an uphill task; and top of all, this rain. As if staying alone wasn’t scary enough for a girl, the rain and wind has to bang on doors and windows like ghosts trying to enter from all directions. It’s been a long time since I have been staying alone. One would think I must have become accustomed now, but I am as scared as I was the first day I slept alone.

I took a long time to sleep at first and then kept waking up with sound of each thunder. When I woke up this time, the sound was different. It was not thunder and it was not the wind banging against my door. There was someone outside the door. There was someone knocking faintly in regular intervals. I asked who it was. Nobody replied. The knocking increased and with it another sound; as if somebody was scratching the gate. My first reaction was to ignore the sound and sleep, but I rejected it immediately. I was as curious as I was scared. With trembling hands I put the security chain and slowly opened the door. There was no one outside the gate. I removed the chain and opened the gate, and then I screamed. Something ran into my home. It was a cat. She adjusted in a corner, licking herself. I gave her some milk in a bowl and went off to sleep.

Next day morning I had almost forgotten about the cat, when she startled me by dropping something. She liked me and kept rubbing her head against my hand. I got surprised when I went to pour some more milk in her bowl. The bowl was full of milk I gave to her the last night. I gave her a cookie which she sniffed and rejected immediately. She kept playing with a ball so I let her be, and then the daily routine kicked in followed by another lonely night. The only difference was that she was lying beside me on the bed today. Human mind creates its own image of company and thus sleeping was a little easier tonight. The night was eerily quiet and yet I woke up and opened my eyes. My heart skipped a beat and I shuddered with fear. She was just standing there on bed, very near my face. Her eyes were glowing in dark. I sat up and took a minute to be normal again. I locked her in another room and went off to sleep.

The bowl was still full of milk the following morning. I opened the door of the other room to let her out. I was a bit shaken when I saw her face. There was blood on it. In a way it solved the mystery of the bowl full of milk. But where did she find a rat or another rodent in my house? I had enough on my hands so I forgot the incident and carried on with routine followed by another night. I really needed to sleep after two eventful nights. Before sleeping I locked her in another room and then slept. I was very tired and fell asleep as soon as I hit the bed. But it was not in my destiny to sleep tonight as well. I heard someone crying. It was not a sob. It was a wail, women let out when they are being tortured. It was accompanied with a familiar scratching sound. I must have a very sound heart; otherwise combination of these two sounds was a perfect recipe for a stroke. The sounds were coming from the other room. I do not know what I was thinking when I opened the gate, but the wailing stopped and the cat ran into my room. I decided to let her out of the home next morning.

If I had any doubt on my decision of getting rid of her, it was cleared when I saw blood on her mouth the next morning. So I kicked her out of the gate as she purred and tried to come back. I was cleaning the house when I noticed a strange thing. There were stains on blood in the bowl as well. Did she kill a rodent and then like a sophisticated cat, kept it in her bowl and ate? It was a puzzle on which I did not wish to spend any more time.  And then the routine kicked in followed by another lonely night.

I knew I will have to get up again in night, but was only praying the reason was not horrifying. The prayer was not answered. What happened shook me to the core. I opened my eyes and saw two glowing eyes. I do not know how she came back, but there she was standing in front of me. Next few days and nights were horrifying. She kept coming back. There was wailing sound if I locked her in another room. She always had blood on her mouth and her bowl every morning. I could not bring myself to kill her. Leaving her far from home and in animal shelters did not help. She came back every night and just stood there with demonic eyes tearing through me while I sleep.

I was exhausted and terrified. I had grown white with fear and weakness. While lying on bed, I saw myself in the mirror. I was looking all white in white gown and bloodless face. I could not take it anymore, opening my eyes to find her standing there. So I decided not to sleep at all. I wanted to see where she comes from.  Time seemed to stop. It was an eternity before she showed up. She slowly walked up to her bowl. Why was she standing there? There was nothing in the bowl. But she was not looking at it. She was looking at me. She kept looking into my eyes and I kept looking at her. I noticed some other movement in the room. I looked into the mirror. I tried to scream but could not.

In the mirror my white body in white gown was standing on the floor, before the cat and the bowl. I tore my hand with my teeth and kept wailing. I was in pain and screamed at top of my voice. The blood dripped into the bowl.

I don’t remember what happened after that. Then the morning came and with it, the cat with blood on her face. 

The shadow

Everybody called her ‘shadow’. It was not her original name, but nobody knows what it was. I used to see everyone running back to their houses after darkness fell. Some people said that they had seen her; some said that she was behind them when they were walking towards home. Sometimes I used to wonder, not a single person had claimed that she had harmed them or their kids, but still she was the most feared thing for years. There were varied stories about her; how she got burnt alive in her home or how she was feared to be a witch and was beaten to death or how she was used to drink blood of animals and kids to keep herself young.

I was most curious of them all. So I snuck out one night and hid behind a rock. I kept waiting but nothing happened. I came back at midnight and tiptoed in the house. I lit a lamp in my room and started making my bed. Just when I was about to switch off the lamp, I saw something that made my spine chill and my forehead bursting with sweat. It was my shadow, looking at me, or at least it seemed. It was a women’s outline. I slapped myself thinking that I was dreaming but I wasn’t. I could not scream or tell my parents with the fear that they will discover my misdeed. Whole night I kept sitting in a corner trying not to look at the shadow. Irony was that the shadow needed light to exist and I needed light to not die of fear.

Sometime during the night I fell asleep. I woke up with a start and looked at my shadow. It was my normal shadow. It was after all a dream. I took a deep breath of relief and carried on as usual during the day. By the evening I had forgotten about it and by the night I was planning on sleeping peacefully with no recollection of the incident. Somebody touched me on the shoulder and woke me up. I was paralyzed with fear and could not move. Then somebody whispered in my ear and told me to walk out of the house. I was in a state of trance. While I was walking she kept whispering in my ear that I am not separate from her; she said that she was a part of me now and that I was a part of her. She also told me that I will have to go wherever she goes.

I hid under the bed, went to temples to pray, kept chanting prayers but she kept coming back every night. Her existence did not matter on presence of light but yet she was my shadow. It was as if I was living in a nightmare which didn’t seem to come to an end. One day I gathered courage and screamed at her. She didn’t seem to notice at all, but yes next day there were more horror stories of the shadow and its poor victim. I begged her to leave me but she did not give any response.

Finally I told my parents. They were shocked and frightened at the same time. To avoid embarrassment they did not tell anyone. They tied me to the bed at night so that I cannot go out. But night came and so did she. I spent entire night on roads again. When I came back, I expected my parents to be in terror but they were not. They told me that I had not gone out even for a single minute.

So I gave up and kept wandering with her night after night after night. She did not say anything; just kept roaming. I tried not to look at her face, not that she had a face to look at. She kept holding my hand, with a hand she did not have. I stopped telling her to leave me. My parents were happy seeing me in house for entire night when I was actually treading up and down the roads.

But something had changed now. I had started feeling secured with her. I started looking forward to the nights when we walked on those roads together. I found myself to be most peaceful when I was with her. And then one day she looked at me again with eyes she did not have. I knew she was going to leave me now. And then I looked at her. And she knew I wasn’t going to leave her.

I am the shadow.

The chair she sleeps in

It was her favourite corner of house; gave her adequate sunlight in winters post noon and satisfying breeze in summers. She used to sleep almost entire day peacefully on her rocking chair. After my in-laws got killed in an accident, she was the only one we had who we could call a family. My husband, my four years old daughter and I took turns to sit with her and tell her what is going on in our respective lives. My daughter loved her the most. She used to keep scribbling and doodling things we have not been able to discern from one another. Then she always used to hand over her art to her beloved grandmother who played along and praised her. My husband, no matter how tired he was, used to sit with her and pressed her legs till she slept.

 

I also did my best to keep her happy; but I was so jealous of her, jealous of the fact that she could afford to sleep all day while I slog in kitchen for a daughter and a husband who paid no attention to me and jealous of the fact that she had the most amazing corner of the house. However if you ask me what was I most jealous of her; it was her rocking chair. Sometimes I used to imagine myself sitting in that chair, admiring myself in mirror on opposite wall and fading into slumber while I oscillate. I was amazed at how I had never seen her leaving that chair, how she manages to do her chores even without asking my help and even without leaving that chair. This is one mystery I could never solve. I had lost all hopes of ever sitting in that chair; but luck was in my favour.

She had slept the entire day without moving from the chair as usual. When my husband was pressing her legs, he felt they were colder than usual. Thinking that she was unwell, he tried to wake her up. She never got up. After she was gone, we felt if we had awakened from a dream. Suddenly we did not know what to do in the spare time which was earlier spent with her. Next few days were very depressing and uncomfortable for both of us. Now we had time for each other but nothing to talk about. One day not long after the grandmother died, I spent one such wordless evening with my husband and then walked out of the room to look after my daughter. She was as usual doodling sitting in that corner near the rocking chair. I realised in last few days, I had forgotten both, my daughter and the chair. I kept looking at her while she scribbled with absolute concentration, but what she did next made me shiver. She offered the notebook in the air, as if her grandmother was still there to praise her. Next few moments she kept chuckling as she used to do when her grandmother told her jokes about what the doodle appeared to her as. I lifted her in my arms while she kept pointing at the chair as if her grandmother was still sitting there.

I had not slept properly since she died. It was a lovely winter afternoon and that corner of house looked particularly tempting with sun coming in through the blinds. I had waited for this moment for a very long time. I slowly settled into that chair. As soon as it started oscillating, I understood why I craved for it so much. It was so soothing and relaxing. I also knew now how she managed to sleep for entire day, since only after two minutes my eyes got heavy. I must have slept for hours when a touch woke me up. My daughter handed over her doodle to me. I looked at it and she chuckled even when I did not say anything. I tried to get up but could not. And then it dawned upon me. I looked at my shrivelled hands. I looked at myself in the mirror only to find reflection of a vacant chair. I wanted to scream but I could not.

And then something happened which made it all clear. I came out of the room and kept looking at my daughter. I seemed frightened watching my daughter chuckling. Is this not the dress I was wearing yesterday? How can I see myself standing across the room? And then I picked up my daughter and went into the room while the real I was still sitting on the chair. Or was she real?

And then she came back, looked into my eyes and said – “You wished for my life, I wished for yours”.

Mystery of the Bandage - Stories in the Chai Shop

Some people are born storytellers. Thanks to our schools and offices, imagination of people like us has run dry, but fortunately our elders in villages are still adept in the art of story-telling. Exchanging stories from an imaginary world over a card game or a puff of chillum¹ is still the best recreation they have.  Not all the characters in these stories are imaginary, many of them are real life characters within the village, nearby villages; boys who ran away with a girl of another caste, girls who meet their boyfriends in fields, priest who drinks liquor secretly, families heading for partition and so on.

The main character of our story had recently settled in the village. He took a room on rent in the home of village’s sarpanch². Nobody knew what his occupation was, though many people had seen him spending long hours in chai³ shops with a pen and notebook. Some said he was a government inspector, others said he was a criminal in hiding. Given the lack of unanimity, nobody approached him for the fear of getting associated with him.

One day protagonist of our story entered the chai shop with a bandage over one of his eyes. He ordered for the tea and started reading the newspaper. Incidentally a group of our storytellers was also sitting in the shop at the same time. The person who first noticed him and the bandage around his eyes poked his neighbour who in turn poked his neighbour, so on and so forth. After some pokes, there was no one remained who was not poked and was not looking his direction. The last person looked pretty confused as he did not have anyone to poke, so he just looked at the other members of the group. One of the experienced story tellers declared that he knew what has happened and all others gathered around him. The experience story teller once again looked at the bandage and having assured himself that they were standing on the blind side, started his story.

“All you fools are blind. Don’t you recognise who this guy is? You all have fish’s memory power. This is Madho. I knew you nincompoops will not be able to recognise him, but I knew when I saw him first. Don’t you remember the potter who lived near the neem⁴ tree? This is his son who ran away ten years back. He was good for nothing; used to roam around with sarpanch’s daughter all day long. One day the sarpanch caught them coming out of village’s film theatre and ran after him with a lathi⁵ in his hand. Madho was young and ran very fast while sarpanch got caught up in his own dhoti. Madho looked back and let out a laughter and then he ran away. That was the last anybody ever saw him. The same Madho has come back and was roaming around sarpanch’s daughter. I noticed this and told the sarpanch and the result is in front of you all.”

The last person to be poked was even more confused now. He got up and approached the story teller. Then he took out his slippers and started beating our darling story teller. Others were still upset with his abusive language so they deemed it fit to let him have some beating. After a minute, others jumped in and stopped the person with the slipper and asked him why he was beating the old man. “This donkey has told this same story to entire village and ruined my name” he said. Somebody asked him “How has he ruined your name?”. “My name is Madho, son of the potter.” He said. Everybody looked at each other for a moment and then laughed like there is no tomorrow.

The hero of our story was still sitting there, undisturbed by the fight and the laughter. Others came and went, till another group of gossipers assembled in the shop. There was no poking since everybody had seen him sitting with a bandage. One of the group members gathered courage and asked “What happened to this city dweller?” Another one, as if waiting for this opportunity, jumped in and said “Yesterday I was walking towards my fields when I saw that he was doing exercise in front of sarpanch’s house. I tell you, he may look lean and thin, but he has muscles rippling out of his arms as if he has glued some fishes to them. So I paid him a compliment and said why you don’t participate in village’s wrestling competition. He ridiculed me, saying that “I am national champion. I don’t waste time with these novices.” You know our village wrestler, Bheema, happened to pass from there that very moment and heard him saying so. Only a few know that Bheema himself entered into a national championship but could not compete because he had, by mistake, got himself enrolled in ladies wrestling contest. Some of you may consider him as stupid but I tell you he is very sharp. So instead of challenging him for a fight, Bheema requested him to teach some tricks. As expected, this single bone structure did not know any tricks and while jumping on Bheema, got himself hurt in the eye.” Others were very amused with the story and complimented Bheema on his cleverness. Two of them even got up and enacted the whole incident again.

Village doctor entered the shop and being considered a very respectable man; others touched his feet and welcomed him to sit with them. He seemed very disturbed so they offered him tea and asked what the matter was. He sighed and said that for the first time he is not able to cure someone. The patient was in bed for last one week and no medicine was working on him. They asked who he was. The doctor said “Bheema, and the worst part is that he was supposed to compete in the national championship this week.”  People waited till the doctor left from shop and then enacted the whole trick teaching scene again, only that they jumped on the story teller this time.  

It was a winter evening and nothing like a hot cup of tea when one, after toiling for the whole day, wishes to take a break and share one’s troubles with his brethren.  But not today; today they had a new topic to discuss. They stared at the bandage for so long that the tea got cold and they had a fight with the shop owner to get it heated again. Sipping the reheated tea, one of them declared that he knows what has happened and narrated like this “Last night I got late from work and to reach home quickly, decided to take the shortcut from graveyard. Normally I would not have taken that route but yesterday, this shifty eyed was walking in front of me so I got courage and followed him. We must be halfway when suddenly the wind grew cooler and dogs started howling. I was so afraid that I wanted to take a leak but for the fear of losing his sight, I kept walking. I almost froze when I saw, a ghost appeared out of nowhere in front of him. I jumped in a nearby bush and peeped from there. I tell you, this person is some kind of wizard or something, he was not afraid a bit. He caught the ghost by his tail and threw him in my direction, but the tail struck his eye and thus this bandage. When the ghost was passing by me, I saw his face. He was that boy, Madho, son of potter who ran away in the graveyard and got killed by witches. His ghost still roams remembering his love with sarpanch’s daughter.” He had just finished the story when a slipper came down hard on his head and then another and yet another. The slipper holder yelled “For the last time I am telling you dogs. I am Madho, the son of potter, and I am not a ghost.”  

And that was the last group of the day. Our hero with the bandage on his eyes, having drunk twenty cups of tea, undisturbed by the on-going events around him, took the last sip of the day. Then he opened the bandage, put in on the table and rubbed his eyes. He took out a pen and a notebook and wrote “Madho - son of the potter, Bheema – wrestler who enrolled in ladies’ national championship, sarpanch who got caught in his own dhoti, Madho’s ghost with a tail.” Then he kept the pen and notebook in his pocket and said to himself “Interesting characters for my next story.”

¹ A chillum, or chilam, is a straight conical pipe with end-to-end channel, traditionally made of clay and used since at least the 18th century for smoking tobacco

² Head of the village

³ Tea

⁴ Azadirachta indica

⁵ Stick

The Lodge: Night and the Nightmares

It was Christmas Eve and we decided to visit my parent’s house. It was half a day drive so we started around noon so that we reach before dinner. My wife, as usual, kept her frown and my five year old son, as usual, was excited. Everything was going well and we must have covered half the distance, when we got a flat tyre. No problem, I had a spare. Or, I thought so. It turned out that even the spare was flat. I told my wife and son to wait in car while I go get help. I waited near the road to get a lift. Lucky for me, I got a ride which dropped me to a gas station in about an hour. I got the tyre fixed. It was getting dark when I reached back. So finally we started moving. I must have driven for two hours, when the fog got very dense. I was also very tired due to extra travel and needed a rest. But there wasn’t a place to stop by. After driving for another half an hour, I saw a man walking down the road. It was weird since I had not seen any place to stay. I stopped and asked for a lodge. The man had a deep voice. He said something that I could not understand. It was very cold outside and he wasn’t able to articulate properly. He gestured asking whether he could come in. I reluctantly let him in. For the first time I noticed him. He had a scar across the face. He said that he is also heading towards a lodge, which is only place to stay nearby.

As soon as I laid my eyes on the lodge, I knew it was a bad idea. There was nowhere else to go, so we entered the lodge, three of us. I did not notice when the man disappeared, not that he mattered now. While I casually looked around for the man, my son screamed. My wife and I ran inside the lodge. My son saw the lodge owner and got startled. The lodge owner was a living impression of the witches you hear about in fairy tales. She chuckled seeing my son frightened. She opened a room for us and fixed some dinner for us. My wife and I had not spoken a single word till now. This was obviously worse for her than going to my parent’s house. My son had not recovered from his fear yet. I tried to soothe him but he was not able to sleep. I gave him my camera so that he could look at the photographs from our earlier trips. I was very tired and fell asleep quickly.

I heard a sound of a woman crying; not crying, sobbing probably. Then some screams, more like suppressed screams. I opened my eyes; there was nothing so I slept again. I heard a deep voice, like that of the man on the road. “Where did he go?” I thought in my sleep. I saw him near the door. I opened my eyes, but he wasn’t there. This has happened with me before, when I was a kid. In dark, the mind makes the images that you are afraid of. I slept again. I felt stabbing pain in the chest and woke up. I was sweating. I drank some water and felt normal. When I was about to sleep, I saw that my wife was sitting near my son’s bed. I asked her if there was anything wrong. She did not reply. I thought she had fallen asleep while sitting there, so I got up and touched her shoulder. She was not sleeping, but she did not look back either.

I called out her name; it was as if she was in some kind of trance. I was already trembling having seen the images earlier. My tongue twisted when I called out her name again. She did not respond. I could hear her breath getting heavier. From where I was standing, I could not see her face and I did not have courage to take a step further. There was a mirror on my side. I looked into it and was able to see half her face. My knees lost their strength and I dropped on the floor. That scar. The scream; so loud that I had to put my hands on my ears. She held my son in the air. Blood was dripping from her face. It was like her face was eaten. Her body was fighting with itself. The old woman chuckled. She wasn’t there. My son had woken and was chuckling like the old woman. I had lost all control over my legs. The stabbing pain was increasing every second. In this entire struggle I could reach a knife. Amidst all that fear, I thought it was very convenient that I could reach for a knife in this situation. I threw myself at her and with all my strength stabbed the knife in her back. She let out a scream in a manly voice. At the same time, I saw a scar building up on my son’s face. He was chuckling. He jumped on me and i raised my hand with the knife. This was probably the longest nightmare I had that night. My heart was pounding heavily when I got up. My wife and son were sleeping peacefully. A little too peacefully I thought. I decided to give it one more chance.

My head was swinging. Sunlight was burning my eyes. I took half a minute to be able to see. The old woman was standing on the door screaming at top of her voice. The man with the scar came running. The next thing I saw was blood on my bed. It was my wife’s blood. She was stabbed to death and so was my son. I kept shouting to police that the Scarface and the old witch had killed them, but they did not listen. I came to know the reason why they were not taken in custody later at the court hearing. The judge directed people to go out of the court. A video submitted by the police was to be played in the court and apparently it was so gore that it was prudent to not let people see it. Apparently my son was playing with buttons and left the camera on recording mode. Again very convenient, I thought. The video started playing. We three were sleeping when I got up, picked a knife and first stabbed my wife and then my son. I shouted that I did not do it. They were convinced that I was lying and by now I was convinced that I was mentally disturbed.

I requested the judge to allow me to attend the funeral, before going to the prison. I was handcuffed and was taken to the cemetery. I wanted to see the faces once before burial. They opened the coffins for me. My eyes got wide as I saw the faces. I started screaming “The scar, the scar”. But ofcourse no one else could not see it.

The chair, the ghost and my dog.

It was a perfect winter evening. There was enough smog that you did not need to exchange glances or smiles with strangers therefore no need to worry about your appearances. I must have really come far since I was out of thoughts generated by my subconscious mind. I was thinking of turning back when I noticed there was a man sitting on a chair which had only two legs. No matter how hard he tried, he could not balance the chair. It was an amusing sight. I kept watching him, but not for long. Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to approach him. “Can I help you”- I said. “Indeed” he smiled at me and vanished into this air. Next minute I was sitting on the chair and trying to balance it. No matter how hard I tried, I was not able to get up. And as happens with all the nightmares, I woke up sweating and trembling.

I got up and walked towards the fridge. I had moved recently into this house and was getting accustomed to it. There were many doors and I ended up opening the wrong door. After switching on the lights I realised that this is not the kitchen, but just before closing the door, my eyes fell on an object which I could never forget. Not on that night, not ever in my life. A chair with two legs. My knees suddenly became weak. The problem with the Heart attack is that it does not come as easily as they show in movies. You have to go through the full agony of realising the implications, the fear and the pain. You have to feel every drop of sweat dripping down your forehead and a chill down your spine. It is wrong on so many levels. Your whole life’s disbelief in ghosts come crashing.

The human mind is very strong. It conjures up images and the face of the man sitting on the chair was in front of my eyes. For the first time I realised that it was a face which could not be described. I am not sure whether we can call it a face. The man was now sitting on the chair. The chair was perfectly balanced on its two legs.  He whistled. My dog came running. My dog was now sitting in his lap. The chair was balanced. Somehow the fact that the chair was balanced seemed to be much more significant that all of this. Fortunately the human mind can only take as much so I collapsed.

I could never go back to that place even for collecting my stuff. I moved to the city and drowned myself in work. My kids help me remain occupied in one thing or other. I miss my dog. The life has changed, except on winter evenings…..