When I Saw a Ghost




I don’t know what it was. But it was something that I would not like to see again. Even now, it gives me the goose bumps, when I recall its image. Almost twenty years have elapsed since I sighted it but the memory is still fresh. I can feel a tingling sensation run down my spine as I recall that incident.

It was a dark and stormy night. Rain was falling in torrents. The street was deserted except for a couple of stray dogs that were shielding themselves from the rain under the eaves of an abandoned shed. I had taken this route because I was too much inspired by Robert Frost’s lines

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.

I could have gone by the normal road but I took the one that was less travelled by. I don’t get scared easily but then I had never been on such a lonely stretch of road before. So, I was not feeling my usual confident self. When you are on a busy street, howsoever late it is, you think you are the bravest soul. But it’s an entirely different story when you are alone on an isolated road. The rain and the darkness were making things more difficult. I cursed myself for taking Frost so seriously.

I had just turned the corner of that long desolate street when I heard someone whistling. I dismissed the sound as that of a nocturnal bird. But the whistling was persistent. I realised it wasn’t a bird’s sound. Whistling if done properly can be music to the ears. But this whistling wasn’t music to the ears. It sounded harsh, grating, almost inhuman.

The rain had relented and only a drizzle fell. I halted and glanced behind but not a soul was in sight. I began walking again. I heard the dogs barking. They had gone berserk. Then as suddenly as they had begun to bark, they quietened down. The whistling became clear and distinct, as if someone was close by, but I could see no one.

And then I saw an eerie figure emerge from the shadows. Thin, skeleton-like, ugly as toad, with warts on its face, wearing a white suit, and a white hat, its eyes gleaming wickedly, whistling in a rasping voice, it was coming towards me. I tried to run but my feet were stuck, as if, I was held by some invisible force. I recited every prayer I knew with closed eyes, from Surah Yaseen to Naade-Ali to Hanuman Chalisa to Yatha Ahu Vario to St. Patrick’s Breastplate. When I could not think of any other prayer, I gingerly opened my eyes. The left, first, then the right.

There was no one. Only an owl peeped from the hollow of a tree, its eyes mocking me.

-          NZ

11.8.2019      

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