Unusual Short Story – Madly in Love
Unusual Short Story – Madly in Love
Photo credit: cimeries from morguefile.com
We were living in the outskirts of a small town those days. My father was a secretary in a nearby village panchayath. I being his only son, he had harboured high-flown dreams about my future. He wanted me to become an engineer. But my dream was different and a colourful one…
My mother descended from a family of fishermen. It so happened that I took a fancy to fishing in my boyhood. That soft corner for fishing in my heart sprouted and bloomed into a passion. In my college, most ill humored lecturer would literally laugh out loud when I blurted out that I wanted to be a fisherman. My friends nevertheless loved my ambition; for this was one means to laugh their hearts out. My father hated me for that.
A mile away from our home was a wide river inviting me everyday. I had never been there. It was one of my friends who told me all about it. The truth that “Hell hath no fury than my father scorned,” made me stay away from the river during daytime. But at night I couldn’t resist the temptation. I began hopping out of my window every night to go fishing.
On the first night of my visit I was almost blinded to every other presence around me out of joy. For a few days I didn’t manage to catch even a single fish. On the fourth day I caught a shoal of fish. In the morning I gave it away to my friend Avinash. My nocturnal visits to the river continued. After a week, fishing interested me less and I began looking about my surroundings. It was at this stage that I felt a bit nervous. Swooshing wind ripped the silence of that deadly night.
On the other shore I beheld a figure in white waving towards me and I felt a chill run down my spine. I dropped my fishing rod and sprinkled a handful of water on my otherwise sweating face. I wanted to make sure if I was dreaming. It was a full moon night. I rubbed my eyes and watched again; eyes wide open. The same womanly figure was waving her sari towards me. After a few seconds jasmine and roses came floating towards me on a lotus leaf. I felt queer and ran back home. On the next full moon night I saw that same women waving towards me. This time a soft hypnotizing music came floating from the other shore of the river where the woman stood. I sat there in a trance, as if drugged, for a longtime. I shared this queer experience with my friend Avinash. He laughed at me and called it my illusion. And finally he was infuriated.
“Just stop this nonsense stuff of yours! Why the hell would a woman wait for you on that deserted shore?”” he blasted out.
“How can I know that? but I’ll really go mad within a few days. I can’t even stay back at home out of curiosity.”
“I think she might be madly in love with you. But I wonder why flowers instead of making a phone call or sending an email..” Avinash scratched his head guessing.
“She might be an illiterate village beauty then.” I suggested.
“Or else a demon lover, a Mohini, who waits for her human lover on full moon nights to suck his blood…Grrr” growled Avinash making beastly face.
“Oh shut up! If you can’t help, don’t try to scare me.” I snapped grinding my teeth.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I slipped from my cozy bed, hopped out of my window like a cat and walked towards the river.
It was a dark cloudy night. Moon seemed to play hide and seek with the clouds. I held a flashlight in my hand. I went and sat alone on a rock in the shore. At my feet the river flowed dancing; all awake when the whole village was asleep. Trees were bending down and dancing with the wind and the river like witches. I felt that they would have heard my heart palpitating. In a few seconds I felt something soft on my feet, I jumped out of fear and examined it from a distance with my flashlight. It was just a bunch of white flowers smeared with kumkum. I picked it up. To my horror I found that it wasn’t kumkum but a thick nasty smelling red liquid.
This time I really wanted to check it out. I spoke aloud that I wasn’t a coward. I then jumped into the river and began swimming to the other end. It was a hard task swimming amidst hard rocks at night. When I reached the other shore the moon was up and shining. I was breathing hard out of perspiration. When I looked up I was shocked out of my senses. I let a fearful scream and began running ahead not knowing where. After running for a long distance I stopped and looked around to make sure no one was following me. The figure, I had been seeing for these many days, was not of a woman. It was not even a man. It was just a “scarecrow.” I felt ridiculous now. It’s decaying stuffed face and body bound in a rag that had turned white because of fading had scared me. I felt ridiculous. I couldn’t go back home again past that scary scarecrow.
Now I was standing alone in what seemed to be a watermelon farm.
“If there was a farm, there must be a farmer too” I thought.
I had left my flashlight on the other side of the river. I prowled for sometime and found a small hut nearby. With some hesitation I softly rapped at the door. After a long time an old man came out with a lamp that had a very low flame. I could hardly see his face. He asked me what I wanted. I explained. He let me in and gave me a dusty straw mat to sleep on. There was a low fire in the room. And soon I fell asleep out of exhaustion.
Soon I dreamt something vague. A whole village- men, women and children- had bent over me to have a look. They had old sorrowful faces. I wanted to open my eyes but I couldn’t; however hard I tried. Then they spoke of me in an unknown tongue and smeared a thick red liquid on my body. They carried me howling and cheering on their heads and dropped me into the river. I felt like falling into a chasm and after a while I sensed nothing.
The next morning a few men were sprinkling water on my face. I woke up and found myself on my town’s riverbank. My flashlight was lying beside me. I was smeared with red kumkum like substance. I narrated my last night’s adventure to the people who had gathered there. They said it was my illusion.
One among them explained, “There was a village on the other side of the river many years ago. But the whole village perished in a flood. Since then every year that land remains drowned during monsoon. No one lives there.”
And I was hearing that story for the first time.
__END__
