An Encounter with the Unearthly

Amid the twinkling stars, the fragrant black sand and the whispering zephyr – we sat on the shore, hearing the sea roar, away from the corporate tether. Dumas was far from our town – the madding crowd, the honking cars and a mundane life cast down.

PD, the flirt, walked down later, giggling on his phone. Shubho and I kept passing the smoke, when suddenly, I heard a groan. A murmur of feminine cry, moving ahead frightfully spry, I turned around and dilated my eye, but not a mortal soul was there to pry. ‘I heard that too,’ Shubho the bouncer’s voice quivered, his broad forehead perspired and his tall frame shivered.

“Let me be alone” we heard her mourn; it now grew on us, not an aberration we could condone. The shrubs behind us were stygian dark, not a movement that we could mark; the rustling of leaves, the gurgling of breeze, amid a melee of sounds, we sat there in freeze. A surge of fragrance rent the air, in a suppressed voice Shubho said a prayer, “Oh lord, take us to our homes, please let not the ghost ensnare.”

“Shut up,” I chided, thankfully he abided, “let the cogent mind play, it will keep the fear at bay.” And then our sight caught the smoke, in a grip of fear we felt our hearts choke, it struck us what we had just seen, so close to the dead we never had been. Beside the beach lay a crematory, the Hindu dead bodies were its inventory; the corpses do burn but the spirits don’t, to harry an itinerant soul is their spiritual wont.

And then, a flurry of footsteps ran by our side, the tinkling of anklets made hair stand on our hide. “Mumma” the two of us held each other’s hands in scare, the presence of spirits though we had learned to forswear. Yet, when they bit – the teeth of fright, for every sin we had done we felt contrite; the bunking of classes, the smoking of weed, the giving up on hobbies at the altar of greed.

Up on our heels we got and spinning, PD was on his phone, glee and grinning. “Run to the car” we shouted out to him, and dashed upwards like a bolt of beam. Panting like dogs we reached the main street, just escaping tripping over our feet. As we turned around, PD was nowhere to be seen; we cursed the rascal, wondering where he had been.

And then, we saw the car, on was the roof light, trepidly we walked ahead, mustering all our might. PD was sitting inside, grinning on his call; we looked at him, startled by his gall.

“How did you come ahead?” Shubho said with a frown. PD replied, “I was always inside, I had never got down.”