I have always felt that God is the greatest story-teller and I’ve been blessed with quite a few emphatic chapters in my life. Tragic or comic or simply note-worthy; they have helped forge a special spiritual bond.
Of what I’m going to tell you, not one word is imagination. This occurrence doesn’t need any. That is exactly how I like it.
The phone rings and wrenches my attention from the screen, right during the climax. I hastily spew a reply and calculate there is a good fifteen minutes to go. It had been a perfect Sunday. Work was three hours. Lunch was fabulous. I had finished the last installment of a great literary series. I was done assembling the study material for a new project.
With the promise of a delectable dinner, I exit the theatre. I couldn’t remember the last time I had had such a blast. Mentally nodding to the loquacious appreciation of a co-movie goer, I step out of the entrance.
The whole city block, blacked-out. Rain in its most persistent pitter-patter. Not in sheets, but just enough to warrant an umbrella. I open my bag. Bengaluru weather necessitates the umbrella as a companion. Its sun is piercing and rain, sudden. The radiant-case-torch light illuminates the inside of the bag. I recall my sister thrusting it into my hands when I left. Had things been set in motion since then?
I roll up my pants (that later on proved to be a redundant exercise what with my flip-flops). I would bethink later, there were so many things I had counted on. The crowd at the multiplex had been thick before the night shows were about to begin. Either we are the last to leave or just our screening was over at the time. The moon is shrouded, the street-lights that illuminate the adjoining vacant lot have taken a break and incidentally no one is going in my direction. The cops have sought refuge from the cold condensation.
I am still of two minds if my actions were a fall-out of the circumstances or were any of them deliberate to amplify the spookiness.
I decide to use my flash light and illuminate my path ahead (and behind) to stave off any surprises as opposed to use it as hidden defense weapon (you know, the old - blinding the eyes and making a run for it.)
Oh! How I love my confluences? Ever thought, how that missing cherry would have made your banana split-nuts and marshmallows infused, wafers adorned and chocolate sauce bathed vanilla and butterscotch sundae just perfect? That’s why, I love my God-sent spots of bother. They are never in want of missing ingredients.
It takes a couple of steps for me to realize that surprise or not, running for it is impossible in the fresh runny mud. I schlep on. I have trouble finding unyielding ground and try to keep close to the brambles where the grass holds the earth better. I shine the over-growth and the path left behind. I don’t think I could have distinguished something real sifting through the one storey high vegetation from a trick of light.
How much of it was a subconscious attempt to make the night more movie-like?
Rain-drops with no direction sparkle in the flash light. Mercifully, there is no wind. It is just moisture that had been sucked under the noon’s blaze and was being oozed back in the night.
I pass the chicken coup. The stench has permeated into the grounds. I stop breathing and try to walk as fast as possible to the desired spot, where I know the air would be free of the putrid smell. There had been some light back there. The rain has made the place devoid of dogs.
I reach the lone dwelling unit on the lot. A well trodden path divides the building and high shoots. A dark figure emerges momentarily out of a door and then just as soon becomes one with the building. The lot is yet again soulless – save me.
I do a 360 degrees and the flash-light paints a haze of silver-glints, green-grey shrubs, the mud and meandering rivulets of slush. I hoist my umbrella close. No living thing that crawls, walks or paces is witnessed. The lot is at an end. I misjudge the puddle formed at the gap in the boundary walls which one has to negotiate diagonally. I fumble my light. Half the trek is successfully over.
I see no one on the main street. It had been recently dug up. As I try to cross it, I spot a SUV. I retreat to the side and try to squeeze myself between the SUV’s way and a mound of earth. I tilt the umbrella away from me, lest it be caught with the vehicle. I think to myself, there is no way for me to escape if the vehicle suddenly decides to halt and sinister hands make a grab for me. The SUV doesn’t halt but passes close-by. This time, I do revel in the imagined spookiness. I cross the road.
I decide to not take the lane which directly leads to my house. I take the adjoining lane because I know dogs stake out my usual lane. They are surprisingly docile and indifferent during day but I wonder why their tickers run counter-clockwise after mid-night. But within a few strides, my choice is nullified.
My footsteps are welcomed by vicious barks. Snouts and gleaming irises pop out from under porches. A few canines decide that a territorial threat is more worrying than the chilly drizzle.
Flailing my bag had worked previously. But then, they were numbered, there had been light and they were grouped in a single location, directly in front of me. At that time, after a momentary tussle of the fight and flight syndrome, I had gone, so to speak, gangsta on their behinds. Throwing half-pound rocks, chasing them from under cars and shouting wrestling taunts was fun where I felt ballsy and even gave myself a few brownie points for going up a couple of notches against my cynophobia. You see, you never quite get over your 1 and ½ inch long scar on the shin and the savage look in a dog’s eyes just when it decides you are its enemy.
This time, I decide to remain calm and not cause a ripple. I flare my light on their eyes not knowing if doing so will help. I know running won’t do any good for I cannot betray fear. Paws trace my path in my wake but figure I’m harmless. Their quarry keeps putting one step in front of the other while the flash in his hands is a blur.
I am now just a stone throw away. The vista of houses and cars and the street melt into a one big grey mass, glossed over by the incessant rain. Although not in my near vicinity, the air is rife with a cantankerous symphony of barks.
My light is an added source of disturbance and at the same time makes me seem too alien to attack. Probably. A breeze washes over me and I feel like I’m in my very own video game. I’m not scared or panicky and I’m absolutely sure that I’m getting home unscathed because why wouldn’t I? “Just a heightened sense of things.” I know now what Frank Miller meant for King Leonidas.
I flash my light to gauge how much distance is left. It’s more than my light can slice through the darkness. I walk some more, my progress hindered for having to scan my perimeter for any unwelcome pursuit. I get to the vacant plot that cuts through the block to the adjoining lane. I reckon the menaces in my usual lane must have been left behind, so I take the shortcut.
The iron grills come into clear view. No danger had been lurking in the vegetation of that plot, and I don’t see any between me and the house. I hope the cows (tethered to poles, on the undeveloped site juxtaposed to my building and without the cover of shelters) are benign and my light doesn’t startle them.
The metal doors clang, squeak and creak loudly as I enter hallowed ground. Feeling a lot like Alan, (Alan Wake game) I shake the water off my umbrella and shut off my trusty light which I had bought on a whim because its case glowed in the dark. The part near the head of the flash light glows silvery and orb-like green. I admire it while I climb the flight of stairs.
I catch the flicker of candle light through the glass. Its soft glow promises the warmth inside. As I knock on the door lightly, (knowing no one would have gone to bed) I make up my mind about a few things.
# I wouldn’t want to experience this again. Not for some movie, not for the adrenaline rush.
# Family has an irksome tendency of turning out right, but is great in the way that they let you realize it on your own.
My sister calls my name, and I can hear the latch pulled to my ‘hmm’.
