Saturday 22 March 2014

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. 

Friday 21 March 2014

When I will see her tomorrow..

I was standing on the sidewalk. I stand here every morning. I prepared myself to gather courage, cross the street and talk to her. I have been thinking about this moment for a long time now. Any moment she will open the door and come out. I remember her exactly the same. Everyday she comes out on the street wearing a hat, smiles and looks up, and my world just stops there. I watch her walk down the street and I just stand there, mesmerised.
My father used to tell stories about how he used to travel several miles to get a glimpse of my mother. He did this for months before she finally said yes and they got married. I used to wonder, what makes a person take so much pain; what makes a person identify his true love and what makes him sure that he will be able to persuade her eventually. I used to tell my father that I will never be able to undertake such burden. I did not see the point. My father always said “trust me son, you will; and it will all be worth every minute you spent standing in rain and heat, every step you take in a journey of miles and every tear you drop waiting for her.”
I asked my mother whether my father’s persistence forced her to say yes. She said that she would have agreed on the first day they met. She knew that he was the one she would get married to. I was baffled, why did she wait? She winked at me and said “It’s a girl’s secret. Ask the girl you would love when she says yes.” I always thought they were a weird couple.
I first saw her three months back. I am a shy person, especially when it comes to beautiful girls. I believe she looked at me. At the risk of sounding like a crazy stalker, I figured out her address and followed her home. I thought I will ring the doorbell and ask her out, but could not gather enough courage. I tried many times in office as well, however her smile makes me forget everything, even what I was about to say.
But not today; today I will walk up to her and ask her out. I had rehearsed what I will say. I had also planned various responses based on her reaction. I decided not to be too excited if she says yes, nor too depressed if she refuses. What if she does not recognise me? Should I then first introduce myself? Will she think I was stalking her? What if she was already engaged to someone? Am I dressed appropriately? Hope there is no spinach in my teeth? I cannot get nervous today. I have to do this.
And then the door opened. My heartbeat increased every millisecond. And there she was, like I remember her. Why does she smile so much? I am again forgetting what I had planned to say. I should do something fast. I started walking towards her. I was only watching her. The world had stopped around me.
But maybe everything had not stopped. I failed to notice a speeding truck approaching me. She looked at me. I thought she had recognised me. And then the truck hit me. I was dead. Again! I stood, picked up the flowers I brought for her, dusted my coat and walked back to the sidewalk.
I stood there, waiting for tomorrow morning when I will see her again.

Thursday 20 March 2014

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.

Saturday 8 March 2014

The price I paid....


She kept on roaming in the house at night. I tried everything; making her sleep with me, locking the door to her room, tying her to the bed, giving her mild sleeping pills, psychiatric sessions; but nothing worked. You may not believe all this, even I did not at first, but then one night I stood outside the gate and saw the lock open from inside and she emerging out of the room. She was always in trance. I was frozen that night for the first time and now every night I silently look at her while she walks up and down the stairs, jumps on the couch, opens and closes the refrigerator, stares out of the window and talks to the cat. She does not sleep and so do I.

She is very cheerful during the day, with no recollection of what she does at night. She never sleeps, but is always fresh. On the other hand, I cannot go through the torture and horror of watching her every night. How she unties herself or opens the lock has always been a mystery to me.

One day I noticed that she was talking to someone at the window. It was past midnight. It was a scary face, the one you imagine that a ghost would have. I could not hear what they were talking about. I screamed and ran towards the window. He did not seem to notice me and kept talking to her. I picked her up and shut the window closed. She kept talking as if he was still there. While I was shutting the window, I saw his face closely and skipped a heartbeat. My dead husband was standing outside the window.

I was alone at home next evening when the window opened by itself. I saw the face and screamed once again. He called me by the name he used to. He kept a figure on his lips and gestured me to be quiet. Then he spoke. He said that he knows what was troubling her. He also said that he knows how to cure her, but there is a price to be paid. He asked whether I was willing to pay the price. Then he left, I do not remember when and how.

And then everything changed. I do not know how, but it did. I could not believe when I saw her sleeping. I kept watching her entire night and cried with happiness. Every following night, scared that I was, that things will not be like this for long, I saw her sleeping. And after a long time, I also started sleeping again. Life became normal. Weeks passed. I was convinced that she was cured now. Though I could never understand her powers of opening locks without keys, but I did not want to think about it. I also wanted to forget that I ever saw my dead husband. It was all a nightmare and it was over.

One day, principal of her school called me. She was worried. My daughter was sleeping in the school. My first thought was that she might be making up for all years of lost sleep. I started making her sleep early in evening. She had stopped talking, had dark circles under her eyes and had lost appetite. I started taking her out to play with other children but she just sat in a corner. She trembled and shivered when I spoke with her.

Once again I had to take her down to the psychiatrist. She went back to her memories in a state of trance. She said she did her homework, had dinner and went to her room to sleep. And then she started trembling, scared to hell and had to be brought back to her senses. I could not let her go through the nightmare again.

It took me lot of time to make her comfortable enough to talk to us. I took her in my arms and asked what is she so afraid of? She said “you”. I told her that I loved her a lot and will not do anything to hurt her or let anything happen which will hurt her. I asked her why she was afraid of me.

She innocently asked – “Why do you keep walking at night?”