Jul 6, 2006

Madness -2

It had all started about 3 months back - when I first started seeing the faces. Faces of a woman and two children. Faces with their expressionless eyes. Faces motionless, just staring at me, like vultures waiting for a prey to breathe its last. I still remember the first time distinctly. I had taken my car keys out of the dressing table drawer and looked up in the mirror and saw her. She was standing just behind my right shoulder, and though outwardly she looked perfectly ordinary, I knew that she was rotting inside. I could smell the graveyard earth on her, I could feel the emptiness, the nothingness inside her. And she just stood there, not making idiotic scary faces or exposing dripping canines or puking green vomit. She just fucking stood there motionless, even as the terror inside me finally erupted out, as i blindly lashed out and swept everything off the dresser, struggling to breathe, struggling to push air into my starving lungs, to unlock the muscles of heart and get the bastard ticking again. Then she was gone, and I began screaming, screaming till I felt my vocal chords about to break from the strain, screaming till i could hear the pounding on the door, till the neighbors finally broke in and forced me to lie down, till I could feel a prick on my neck and then oblivion.

After that it became quite common. I saw her again one day looking at me from the balcony outside my bedroom as I tossed around waiting for sleep to come. And then the children started. The first time was a boy of about 6. It was a power cut that day and I was climbing the stairs to my third floor apartment with a torch in hand. I rounded a corner and the torch fell on his unflinching eyes as he stood 4 steps above me. He was dressed in a school uniform and it was drenched with blood. Oh dear sweet god, there was so much blood! Again I felt my throat closing up, my heart locking and as i frantically clawed at my throat the torch fell out of my nerveless fingers and in the dark he(it) brushed by me and i actually felt the cotton shirt and the sticky blood and tissues as he went past. I had a screaming fit that day too and had to be put under sedation for 12 hours.

..to be continued (tough job..have to finish soon and get on with cribbing about life)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Vivek,
C'mon man. Just don't read these strings if they upset you so much. I am loving it! Better than Masterpiece Theater. Did you guys ever see 'Mother Love' on that series? I forget the name of the actress - very famous actress from the London stage - plays a dominating mother - SCARY!

Shuv, may I suggest a string where you get us started with a story (while you are still so fantastically inspired) and then pass it on to somebody who has to write the next so many words within a certain period. That person will then have the right to name the next author and so on. Should be fun to see the twists and turns that takes.

Shuv said...

idea me dumm hai DD but there wont be any takers amongst the readers of my blog (except u and koushik)..if u r reading this ghetu then maybe there is a chance that this might work..so let me know.

Shuv said...

or a better idea is to start this in koushik's blog..he has some fellow bloggers who are good writers..can u rustle them up a bit koushik?

kaushik said...

Without shame I have to say I had this idea about a month back but didnt know whether a story could run on its own steam.

We can start the story on my blog but the only visitors to my blog have been Shuv and myself. There are the odds comments from Cactina & Ghetufool (both excellent writers) but very rarely.

Plus I strongly feel this.. For good stories to emerge we dont need writers but people who have stories to tell...

Anonymous said...

Your guru Stephen King would have been proud of you!

Anonymous said...

fuck only 12 hours of sedation,they should doze u off for a week

Shuv said...

tere buss ki baat nehi samajhna..tere liye ek raja rani wala kahani likhunga kabhi