Into the Land of the Dead

Short Story for Children – Into the Land of the Dead
Photo credit: clarita from morguefile.com

Padma was studying her 4^th standard and she was about Eight years old, when the incident, that is being related below took place.  Her school was at a distance of about 5 Kilometrs; from her home, she travelled by a school bus, which picked and dropped her at some distance away from her house. On the way from the bus stop, to her home there was a graveyard . Padma was lived in perpetual terror of that place, whenever she had pass it while returning home in the evening. In the morning, her mother or anyone at home would accompany her till the bus stop, so she only had curious feelings, in the morning, towards this land of the dead.

The graveyard was almost beautiful to behold, during the day when it was said that all the dead souls went to sleep only to awake in the night, to search in vain for what they had been, when they were alive. It had a sprawling peepul tree, bouganvialle creepers of all colours had spread their branches and covered the walls, there were also some very beautiful pink coloured oleander trees which dotted the space between the graves.

Padma was drawn towards having a close look at the graveyard, when the flowers were in full bloom and the greenery seemed to thrive on the flesh of the dead. She stopped at such times, for a few minutes to gaze at this strange beauty, when she was in the safety of someone’s company. It was in the nights, that what she saw in the graveyard seemed to come to haunt her.

It was as if just by looking at them, she had caused the dead to become interested in her too, just as she had been, in them, during the day. They came to peep at her, through her bedroom window, and at times tried to push the door hard to get into her room and crept under her bed to, finally lay their bony hands around her throat and squeeze with all intent of choking her to death and taking her to their land, to keep them company forever.

Padma, could never even scream at such times, her throat seemed to have dried up completely and gathering all her courage, she would get up and sit up, wide awake lest the inhabitants of the graveyard carried her away, when she was asleep.

For some days, she had been noticing, that a group of lambadas had started living adjacent to the graveyard for working as construction labour. The women from this group watched her and often called out to her, just to make an acquaintance of her. But padma, counted them to be one of the friends of the dead; for she could not comprehend, how they managed to live so happily so close to the graveyard.

One day, it so, happened that padma and some of her school friends decided to visit a temple which was at a distance of about 45 minutes of walk from her home. Buses hardly plied in her colony and they had no other option but to walk, if they had to go somewhere. She informed her mother about going to the temple and her mother asked her to wear her gold chain around her neck.

Padma happily agreed, wore her best clothes and the chain which had a sun shaped locket. She went away with her friends to the temple, worshipped the Goddess Durga , took the offering made of sweet pongal rice and not wanting to get late, as it was evening and would be getting dark soon, left the temple, early.

To her shock, padma found that her chappals were not there at the entrance, where she had left them. Padma, was almost in tears when she found that even after searching everywhere, she could not find her footwear. Her friends consoled her that it would be all right, as she would be walking on the footpath and would be reaching the safety of her home soon. Her friends stayed with her, till they had to take a different route to reach their homes while padma headed back to hers, barefooted.

It was winter, and dusk set in very soon and padma tried to quicken her pace, while she walked and she soon found that she would be passing the graveyard of her nightmares. Then things happened very quickly and before she could even look, two men came riding a bike, behind her. One of them came very close to her and stretched his hand towards her neck, where her gold chain lay.

Her pulse raced and she tightly held on to her chain, while the men sped away after brushing her neck with the hand. Padma, almost ran now but she could almost hear the whirring sound of the bike which was turning back for a fresh try. Not knowing what to do, Padma rushed into the gates of the graveyard.

She ran across the graves almost blinded and as if being pursued by the dead. It was not yet dark, as she stumbled and fell upon the graves before picking herself up to run again. Then she noticed one lambada woman, standing with her hands held wide and blocking her way, from passing.  Padma, tried to take another way, but found that the woman had blocked this way and every other way. She screamed at the woman asking her to allow her to pass and the woman only laughed in reply.

The woman was now moving towards padma, as if, to embrace her and padma froze in her place, as she saw that the woman was only a skeleton and her face was a hideously grinning scull. She did not know what happened after that, and darkness enveloped her mind as she realized that inhabitants of the graveyard had come to claim her as their own.

Padma’s mother was worried as her daughter did not return home even as dusk had set in and began to look for her. Just as she was reaching the graveyard, she gave out a cry as she saw one of the lambada men carrying an unconscious padma in his arms.

He told her, ‘ I do not know what had happened but she came running across the graveyard and one of our women, who watch her regularly while she goes to school tried to stop her from running barefooted over the thorn and insects filled graveyard. She yelled at her to clear the way and then, suddenly fainted. As we knew, she belonged to this home we decided to carry her to her parents. Ask her not to get so scared of us, our women had grown fond of her and were only trying to be friendly!

Padma, till this date insists that she was accosted by a ghost on that strange day, and she is 42 years old now with a daughter who is the same age as padma’s  at the time, when the incident took place.

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