P 2. Confounded...Its chaos!

Janet needs convincing to accept the stark truth....... and does she accept it??

2. Confounded.. Its chaos!

Jolted as if by a high voltage, she stood there gasping, her throat burning. Mustering courage, she ran her trembling fingers over the inscription. Why was her name on the wooden plank? Reading the epitaph her heart lurched even as she forgot to breathe. And horrors, she was sitting on a grave! ......a grave with someone buried deep down!! But why her name? Omigosh!! Yet, for reasons unknown to her, she didn’t let go off the plank…..

Gradually her eyes got accustomed to the numerous gravestones standing out in the moonlight, each with names and epitaphs inscribed on them. Sitting there on the mound, she froze with fear. Should she make a dash for the gate? But how? Her feet felt heavy and paralyzed. What if.......? Oh, only if her mom or at least her son were around! God, how did she ever reach here? And how was she to get out of here? This was all so bizarre and wrong.

She felt awkward standing bare feet on the sand. She looked around hopefully. Where were her sandals? Clinging on to the plank, she sobbed silently as waves of helplessness washed over her.

The ‘dream theory’ popped up once again. If this was a dream, it was a very bad one and a pretty long one. Wiping her tears with grubby hands, she once again examined the inscription on the plank. Yes it was indeed her name, and, those were her son, mom, her sister and brother, ‘deeply mourning her loss’. She looked at the date, yes, her date of birth was right too, and the date of death (ughh, such a morbid word!). Oh oh, that was yesterday! But how could that be so?

“Calm down, calm down Jane”. She told herself.

She tried recalling the events of the past day that was. Yes, John had come home on vacation and the two had gone to the beach with James her brother, his wife Sarah and their two little daughters. The kids made castles in the sand and played ‘catch’ running about and screaming excitedly. The three adults chatted away and watched the sun set in the horizon. Later all of them splashed about in the sea water. She then urged the others to pack up, so that she could give the finishing touches to her ‘Presentation’ for the next day.

They had then dined at the famous ‘King’s Restaurant’ by the beach. For dessert, they opted for ice cream, the kids and the elders voted for butter scotch flavour, and she for her all time favourite, black currant ice-cream. They enjoyed slurping it all up! A smile creased her tear stained face.

And then........ and then…..??

She jogged her memory, scanning.... replaying the events over and over again in sequence. Butter scotch for all and Black currant for her. And then?.. Everything stopped at the ice creams. She shook her head with impatience. This had to wait. She'd ask them when she actually woke up and then there’s going to be a good deal of laughter!

“Heeeeeehahahahahha.....” Her thoughts were interrupted bye an eerie laughter in the distance.

“Yooooou sleepy head, heeehahahaha, so you made it to the appointment haah?”

The eerie laughter was soon joined by many more, till the graveyard rocked with loud raucous laughter.

Pulling out of her thoughts she looked in the direction of the laughter. At first, it all seemed a haze. Gradually things began to shape up, her eyes got accustomed to the distinct outlines of some men and women huddled over a large gravestone. Here in the dark of the night? Now that’s pretty strange! She wondered what time it was, and just then a clock chimed once, far away.

What were they doing here at this unearthly hour? No doubt, they had to be some kind of anti social elements… burglars splitting the loot?... drunken men on a rendezvous?.... or some wayward men and women making it out in an abandoned place?

A chill crept up her spine. What if they spotted her? She shuddered at the thought of being attacked or robbed, or of even being molested in this secluded place. Never before had she felt so vulnerable. Holding her breath, she remained still and shut her eyes, so they wouldn't spot her.

Clouds sailed by, unveiling the full moon. She heaved a deep sigh of relief which got cut short midway as pale ghostly figures began floating about. Now she’d reached the limits of her endurance. Letting go her vice-like grip on the plank, she jumped down and ran for dear life, toward the only sign of life there, the huddled group of people. Their suspected anti-social nature didn’t bother her, this once.

As she took to her heels, her feet seemed to lift off the ground, and she began to float in the air, the breeze hitting her cheeks and hair. The feeling was exhilarating, just as she’d often dreamt as a child….wow!

“Help me please”. She gasped collapsing right behind the boisterous crowd. They turned suddenly at the interruption, and all noise died.

“I guess I’ve lost my way. Could you please direct me to Street No 23? I live there. I’m really baffled about how I reached here. So please……..” She sobbed unable to speak any further, pulling herself up.

Several heads nodded kindly.

“Miss, you’re in the right place”. Quipped a youngish looking boy, “It happens…”

“Shhh…..” Cut in a moustached middle aged man. “Go easy on her.”

She itched to lash out at them. Here was she, lost and helpless and they had the cheek to play games. But now pitted against many, she held on to her patience, and her guts….

The moustached man coughed and then continued, “Now Miss…”

“I’m Janet”

“Ok Janet, let me put it gently…”

“What the $#@$$....!” She shrieked maniacally, losing all control, and broke down sobbing. “What are you trying to say? All I want is to get back home. Just tell me if you can help. Oh please…..!”

The moustached man suppressed a grin, annoying her further. “I’m Joe, short for Joseph. Don’t get me wrong Janet, but you are where you belong, at last.

“Stop it”, she yelled at him. “It’s just as I thought. You are all thugs!”. For once, she didn’t care what they would do to her, at least not now. “and once I get out of here, I’ll report you!”

They shifted uneasily, nodding to each other with an “I knew this would happen” look, as Janet continued sobbing, waves and waves of helplessness washing over her.

A pair of gentle hands held her by the shoulder and led her to sit over the cold granite gravestone. Ouch!... she preferred the sand mound, despite its rough and gravelly nature….

“I’m Salma”. The owner of the gentle hands chimed in her sweet voice. “Now, let me explain things to you”.

Eyes brimming with tears, Janet looked hopefully into the kind smiling face of Salma.

“You’ll need to brace up for what’s to come now”. Salma paused to let her words sink in. “First of all, we are all friends over here. You might wonder what we all are up to, out here in the dead of the night.”

“Yes, yes”, Janet nodded in eager anticipation.

“At the outset, you’ve to accept the fact that this is your home from now onwards, and we are your family and the largest one at that…. A family that keeps adding on, even as the members drift away with time, like in the living world….”

Salma’s voice droned on... Janet mentally scoffed at the idea of adding these strange creatures to her friends/ acquaintance list. She dismissed the ‘prologue’ and waited patiently for the rambling to stop.

“Welcome to the world of the dead. We call ourselves the ‘deaving’…. meaning the ‘dead-living’, and now you are one of us.”

“Noooo! I’m not one of you. I can’t be a zombie!” Janet shuddered visibly.

She broke into cold sweat and felt goose pimples all over. Oh boy, this is getting more and more intriguing. “No no no!!” She suppressed a smile at the crazy talk.

“Not a zombie. They are fictional and so macabre…the so called ‘walking dead’, body and all. Ugh! We are the disembodied souls.” Salma resumed her narration. “You were brought in yesterday, died of some anapectic shock, or some kind of silent heart attack, so we heard them say. There seems to be some confusion about that”.

“It’s anaphylactic shock”, another stylish looking middle aged man intercepted. "It’s more likely to be a silent heart attack."

“Thanks Rameshwar. By the way, Rameshwar Rao happens to be a doctor. I mean, he was." Salma continued, "The mourners swarmed the compound trampling over all of us. Many of them were in tears. Heard them recount your kindness and generosity, especially with the weaker sector of the society. Your son was inconsolable, brought tears in our eyes. But, that’s life… I mean, death.” Reaching out, she held Janet’s hands, in a bid to console her.

Janet sat still. This is ridiculous! She’d repeatedly told them that she had wandered off and only wanted to get back home. She once again ran a recap of the last day’s events…. The beach…the dinner….ice creams….and then?? Oh God…what followed? Only if she could dig up that bit of information….. but how? .. a blind end there. She’d never thought in her wildest dreams that she’d wake up in a graveyard, of all the places on earth.... Eeeek!

So, according to Salma, she’d died of an anaphylactic shock or some silent heart attack. Hmm… that’s good diagnosis for an inexplicable death.

Enough is enough. She stood up from the gravestone and looked squarely at Salma and Rameshwar Rao. “Sorry folks, I respect you, but I also leave my sympathies with you. I’ll be glad if u stop harping on the c**k-and-bull story. Have to go now. Just show me the way and I’ll leave. Or better still, I’ll find my way out. Bye, and thanks for your kindness.”

Rameshwar was calm, “Janet, relax. This is the truth and we are all with you…”

Panic flooding, Janet mustered the courage to turn round and rushed toward the imposing gates. Strangely enough, she was floating, away from the eerie ghosts and towards freedom!

The huge gates were locked!

“What’s the matter”? An old man with a long flowing beard and pale eyes had materialized from nowhere and was floating about.

She dodged him, trying to avoid crashing into him. “I want to go. Go far away from this land of the dead. Please help me.” She urged him, gesturing at the now silent gathering at the gravestone. “They think I’m dead.” She slumped drained off all energy to cry anymore.

“I’m sorry." He rolled his ghostly pale eyes at her. "You have to wait 30 days before you set foot outside the gates. It’s the period for acclimatization.” So saying, the old man floated away, even before she could decipher the meaning of the word he'd used in the context of the grave yard. Utter rubbish. The dream is getting weirder every moment.......!

Spent of all energy, she trudged back to her ‘mound’, determined to return home when she actually “woke up”.

“Hi what’s your name? Oh yes, its Janet. Janet, why don’t you join us for the meet?.”

She looked up into a pale face smiling down at her.

With rising hopes, she asked, “Who are you? Have you too lost your way here?”

She laughed, “Oh no, I didn't lose my way. Actually, I came looking for Joseph. He’s a sweet heart and it’s fun to spend time with him. Oh, by the way, I am Sheila. I came here for my eternal sleep, after I died exactly a month ago”. The young girl smiled peacefully as she spoke.

“Do you mean that you are dead too? Then how come you are alive again and talking like living beings?” Janet managed to stammer out, her teeth chattering with fright, having come face to face with people calling themselves ‘dead’.

“I’m sorry Janet, but I must tell you that you too are dead. Oh dear, I hurt your feelings! Please don’t be so stricken with shock. But the sooner you accept the truth, the better it will be. Very often people who are brought under sudden unexpected situations, go through a trying time re-orienting themselves".

“I am not dead!”. Janet whispered clinging hard to the plank as she staggered, forgetting her fears.. “Hahahahah…. Today’s my night of talking with the dead. Hahahahhahah!” She giggled nervously, Anyways, I’m going off to sleep. You may go on".

“And how will you sleep? Hanging on to the plank by your grave?” Sheila spoke calmly.

“Didn't you hear? Just leave me alone. I want to sleep”. She collapsed by the plank.

“I’m sorry Janet, take your time. Do let me know if you need help. I’ll be there, ok?” So saying Sheila moved away slowly..... no, glided along towards the gathering.

Aaah, that was close! She’ll have a rapt audience when she recounts her incredible dream to the kids tomorrow. She couldn't help suppress a grin at her chance at whipping up a new kind of a story.... hahahah...

Curling up over the mound, she shut her eyes, her fertile mind rapidly at work, on a new and sensational article on “The Midnight Rendezvous by the Crypt” ….ahaa, sounds thrilling!

. “Now, to resume my precious sleep....."

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