Friday 31 May 2013

A MEMORY

I don't know what woke me,maybe a dream, an urge,a feeling, but suddenly i was awake, wide awake. I shivered, not from cold, it's the middle of summer. For  a time i just lay there, wondering empty thoughts, feeling indifferent,insubstantial, i don't know if it was a movement but something caught my attention towards the corner of the room, maybe it was instinct. Instantly i could feel someone watching me, the hair on the back of me neck stood up, i shivered again. Realizing finally that i was awake i quickly looked at the time on my phone-12:37. I averted my eyes again towards the corner and immediately had the urge to run. But i didn't.  I realized i couldn't, even if in wanted to, something was stopping me. I sat up, never taking my eyes off the corner. The little light that came through he blinds from the street light outside my window afforded no sight. The corner was still dark, darker than the surroundings, enveloped in shadows. My imagination running wild again, i thought.Relaxing slightly with that thought, my body still tensed i lowered myself again into the bed. Finally i felt sleep come over on me, groggy, and i was in that place between reality and complete sleep, the place where your dreams come true, darkest fantasies are revealed, i was treading that fine line between those two places. My face was still facing that corner. Mist. shadows, fog...a man, probably in his late thirties, dejected, sad, upset....'destroyed'-the word came unbidden to my mind.Why? Why is he destroyed? The little light from the streetlight showed  a receding hairline, premature gray, permanent lines etched into a high forehead. He came and stood beside my bed, looking down on me,beseechingly,i thought. He was moving his lips. looking desperate now, moving his lips fast. His eyes revealed hidden sadness and a hint of something else...something with just a hint of a presence.  Now he is fading, disappearing, melting into...nothing. Then i was lost. Lost in a restless sleep, with images of mist, fog and eyes those haunted, sad eyes. Yes, that's what it was, that look in his eyes, he was haunted. Haunted by what?
Morning revealed a day clouded over with dark skies. My sleep was fitful,broken. And immediately i was bombarded with the happenings of the  night. Was it real? Was it my overactive imagination?Probably.

I forgot this incident, or rather chose to forget it.

A couple of months passed without any further incidence or even an evidence of such a night happening. One day we had some guests visit our house.As we were seeing them to the door the conversation inclined to a very unusual topic-about murders and suicides. My father without probably realising i was present mentiones a suicide which had happened in our house some decades ago. I was immediately all ears.
I then proceeded to question my father further on this peace of new information. It was a man in his late thirties and that was it, that was all he knew. I decided to look into it with the help of the local library.After some strenuous and hours of research, this is what i found- a 39 year old man had committed suicide for no apparent reasons. His wife and a single son had died in an accident an year back, early in their marriage and he had lead a lonely life after that. He had owned a local chemist shop and when he died it had gone to the community since the man had left no will.

I am not professing to know the truth but it's just a theory. Maybe the reason he was haunted was the death of his wife and son, maybe it was their memory that had haunted him, kept him haunted, depraved, maybe that's why he had had no reason to live. No one knows. No one bothered to find out, not even the neighbors. their testimony-"he was lonely man from the beginning, even through his marriage, kept to himself even after his family's accident. He did his job well". That was all they could tell. In one of the newspaper reports i found a picture of his, and my blood ran cold. It was the same man, albeit he still had life.

Since that day i confess I've had no other premonitions, sightings, or anything that made me think of those events of the past.
 Who knows what it was, maybe a memory, a memory from the house that housed that family, a memory brought on to the surface due an unreal, supernatural force, or maybe it was a trick of the subconscious, the complex human brain generating information from the surroundings. 
You tell me.


You might also like:
Childish Longing 
A Ray Of Hope 
Am I Gonna Cry Again? 

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