When it happens?

The time is exactly twelve in the midnight. The world outside my room is fast asleep except for the grating noise created by the motor vehicles plying on the road a little further down. The lizards on the walls of the balcony hiss here and now. I wave aside the humming mosquitoes that pester me consistently. Blood suckers. The dogs in the streets, having nothing to do, howl their night away. Cicadas listlessly buzz at a distant and I can clearly hear the noise it makes.

For a quiet paralytic moment, I stay calm. This is the time when I am completely with myself. The floodgates open up slowly and my thoughts pour out. Initially, in bits and pieces, all fragmented, disjointed thoughts. Visually, it’s like a collage of different images put together on a white sheet of paper. It makes no sense.

Let’s try to understand and make some sense out of it because if much of my thoughts do not convey some sort of a sense, perhaps then, my head is full of nonsense. And sincerely I have a repugnant aversion for the word nonsense. It may be weird, strange, or even mysterious but not nonsense, to say the least.

There is this man, some forty or so year old that comes to my mind every time. He appears like an apparition, a shadow, for I have never been able to identify who this person is. His face is vague. Except for his startling, powerful eyes, other features of his face are very foggy. But he is tall and huge. And he looks dark.

Once when I was walking to my home, across the street, I saw this dark figure smoking a cigar. He wore black glasses and was leaning against the iron fence. Dark clouds of smoke blew out of his mouth. I was scared when I saw him standing there, staring at me.

But I collected all my guts to meet him face to face and ask him why he keeps coming to me. I wanted to ask him if he was real or just a ‘nonsense’ created by my imagination. But why should I ever imagine a dark man, following me all the time, I had thought.

I waited for the traffic to slow down, staring back at the man across the street. As I crossed the street, for a brief fraction of a second, I looked to my right to make sure there was no car coming my way. For that brief fraction, when I indulged in the habit of looking right or left before crossing the street, I lost the sight of the man. That instant, I saw a crow, the blackest of crows, fly over my head, cawing.

When I reached the other side of the street, the man was no where. He had disappeared. I looked everywhere but all I could see was people and cars, people after people, cars after cars. He was nowhere there to be seen. Confused and afraid, I increased the pace of my walk. After sometimes, I ran home. As I ran, the black figure reminded me of death.

Am I going to die? I asked myself. Am I dreaming? I think I am dreaming. This is all a dream, a very crazy dream, I tried to pacify myself. Everything is just a concoction churned out by my mind. That night I could not sleep. The image of the man kept repeating. It was around dawn that I had fallen asleep.

The next day, I went to see a doctor. I walked past the huge crowd of people at the lobby of the hospital. Sick people were every where. I hate to go to a hospital. It makes me feel sick. I climbed the stairs to the second floor. The small room in the lift suffocated me. Rather I preferred walking the flight of stairs.

As I reached the second floor, everything turned white, silvery, and shiny. The reflection of the white shaft of light blinded me. For sometime, I could not see anything. The corridor that was buzzing with a lot of people was suddenly desolated. Everything around was immaculately pure and white. Not a single stain of colour.

And then suddenly, the walls started to turn red. It was blood, I could smell it. I rubbed my eyes and when I looked at it again, everything was normal. People were moving like ants. A few of them glanced at me, giving me strange looks. I shuddered. What is happening to me? I asked myself.

I decide not to meet the doctor and return home. Drinking whisky, I lay on the sofa, thinking what is happening to me. The misty face of the dark man crosses my eyes. Am I hallucinating? Or is this something to do with my brain or is it that I am going mad?

I pour myself another drink. I have almost drunk the whole bottle of whisky and I am not even least drunk. I do not add the ice and drink it neat, in one gulp. The steamy feeling as if hot vapor is going down my throat makes me feel light. Relax, calm down, I use the mantra.

I throw myself on the bed and cover my head with a pillow. I close my eyes, and try to stay calm, and composed. I remind that whatever happening is not true. These are just illusions. My brain needs some rest, I think.

I never wake up the next morning. The phone is ringing, but I can’t pick it up. I exert all the effort I can to reach the phone, but I can’t. Then I forcefully get up, and as I do, I feel as if I am being thrown out of the bed, out of my own body. I hurl across the bed to pick up the phone. And just about when I reach the phone, it stops ringing.

As I turn back, on the reflection of the mirror, I see the same body as mine, the same dress, sleeping on the bed. I turn back slowly, trembling. And I see myself there sleeping. That’s me there, I tell myself. Than who am I, who is this? I am already shivering, and I can feel my heart thump at my chest.

I rush to the mirror. I look at the mirror and I see the dark figure of the man instead of my reflection. The vague face slowly becomes clearer like the reflection that becomes visible when the water stops rippling. A pretty girl, with a smile, stands opposite to me.

You have been there lying dead for the last three days. For the last three days the phone has been ringing non-stop. It’s now time to go, she says.

She stretches her soft hand across the mirror and I take it. And I disappear in the mirror.

The dogs howl, and the cicadas listlessly buzz. The motor vehicles produce that grating noise. The mosquitoes feed on my blood. The time is exactly 12 in the midnight.