Paranormal Short Story – The Empty Chair
Photo credit: mxruben from morguefile.com
Reetobroto was a brilliant student, yet was quite different from being normal when compared to the people of his age. He was a well built man but he did not have a well built personality, not that he was abnormal but may be our society could not accept people of his kind. Everyone tagged him to be strange and creepy while others said he needed some psychiatric help.
Reetobroto certainly was a mysterious character, from his very childhood he had a knack for observing old buildings, houses, apartments and even people for that reason. As he grew older this knack of his changed into an obsession, an obsession that he could not get rid of. He used to go around places all by himself, may be because he did not have friends. At times he would barge into any desolate building or apartment or any old ruin that interested him. No one exactly knows what interested him but when asked he used to say that there’s a certain sense of familiarity, the scent of old damp bricks, cement or even paint made him excited.
He was possessed said the people of his locality, but when talked to, he sounded as normal as any of us. Thus the local chaps often accused him of being nothing but a show off, he was supposedly looking for ghosts or spirits said someone from his locality. But history says that he had once watched a horror film when he was in his teenage years and he was down in bed with 102º C fever. He was certainly not very attached to ghosts or spirits rather loved to stay away from such unclear uncertain horror subjects.
So what exactly was wrong with him? Nothing; may be! There was one such day when he played his talent of barging into an old desolate building, quite large. Probably built during the period of Zamindars. Situated in the outskirts of the town. He probably had visited most of the old buildings or bunglows in town and now ventured for the ones left out and this was one such building. He walked in slowly, touched every brick, felt the little life left in those ruins, and with keen interest looked at the old broad windows, the broken ceiling, the spiral stairs or the vacant rooms. At times he has been kicked off while doing these and has even been accused of theft but he still did not mend his ways.
But that particular day he certainly did not know what was waiting for him. As he tiptoed himself to the last room at the very end of the corridor of the second floor he saw a man, an old man. Probably around 70’s. Wait! He was no more a man, all he could see was a an old man’s body hung from the thick bars that crossed the ceiling. The man’s eyes rolled up, his tongue out till his chin, body as still as a stone and face as pale as Reetobroto’s whole body was now turning into. He stood there, doing nothing but looking everywhere, all around the room, he could not move.
It was only after few minutes when he knew that this wasn’t the right setting to be in, hence he went back home. Quieter than he was, stranger than he ever could be, creepier than the word itself could define. Days passed by and he inculcated a new habit. He stopped going out of his house, stopped visiting old buildings or stopped seeing people. He would sit idle doing nothing but looking blankly at the ceiling for hours and then suddenly write something down in his little diary.
He continued this for days until one day he left his diary open and slept, which was very unlikely since he would never let anyone go through even a word of what he was writing. He was a strange a person and so was his writing. His first entry was the day after he saw the dead man. There was nothing about the man, but remember as he stood there and observed everything around him? Everything he wrote was a vivid description of what he observed that day. The consecutive entries were similar in kind. He wrote about how the sun-rays dropped at the foot of an old empty chair that casted a shadow long enough to touch his feet, the pile of dust that lay on the old torn books and made his own assumptions that probably the old man had a son who had abandoned him, may be those were his books which lay there for years. Or may be the man was alone all his life and only old age and bad eyesight kept him away from those books.
He then spoke of unwashed bed-covers, a newspaper that lay there and then there was the radio that played songs from the 60’s. He even described the color of the floor and the creaking noise of the old ceiling fan but strangely enough he did not even mention that old man he saw hanging from the ceiling.
Remember me mentioning that he was afraid of uncertain unclear horror subjects? He was in a shock and all he could do is write down his fear. May be he thought that was the way of escaping from his fear.
Later that night, while he was deep in his sleep he still couldn’t forget the suicide scene in his dreams. His mind now played with him. Science says that our brain is more active and our brain capability doubles itself while we are asleep as compared to when we are awake. And that was exactly what was happening to him. He somehow pictured himself standing at the foot of a dead body that hung from the ceiling; the only fact was that as he looked up towards the ceiling he saw his own pale face. His tongue hanging till his chin and eyes rolled up and face as pale as it could be. That was the end. As he stood there to see himself hang in his dreams he died in his sleep out of a stroke.
It was next morning that people in his house realised his death and mourned his sudden death while some said it was because he was possessed or he led his life in an abnormal way while the rest were just ignorant.
Unbelievable? How or rather why does someone die while sleeping just because he watches himself die in his dream? Unreal, right?
Wait! How does anyone know what he was dreaming and what particular scene or incident in his dream caused his death?
Unless he is the one writing about it?
Hello, I am Reetobroto.
–END–
