Kate Sarah
My inbox is filled with queries I fail to reply. I will never understand the depth of human stupidity that exceeds without limits. This is why I keep no company of the living and to be honest I pride myself on my detachment as some connections can be a cruel curse. The only being I feel attached to, is my cat Nana. I do not know if feline creatures are as warm as her. She is more human than most of the being who pretend to be. She and I, we share an unbreakable bond; we met under eerie circumstances. She rather rescued me when I was young. It feels like a dream now, how I met her but she has always protected me and continues to do so with no remuneration in return.
Two winters ago, I started a Youtube channel under a pseudonym Sybil the Seer; so much for a homebody like me. One of my clients suggested me to do so. Internet is filled with many shams. I had to research first; to be honest it was quiet entertaining to watch few of the amateurs. There is an array of tarot readers on Youtube not to mention Play Store suggesting you apps that offers readings. It is sad to know that people actually fall for some con artists who offer to help and has no gifts of seeing things. There’s a separate section for love reading, all positive ones and then there are sections for the stones, beads collectors that promises to unlock the hearts of the Querent’s love interest.
Humans must be the only race that’s seeking from eons. We are learning but never content with our answers. There is no clarification as why and what we are searching. We are just hungry for knowledge, we have always been and the known scares us all.
It was a jungle out there and I knew I’d be eaten alive. Well a girl’s got to do what she’s got to do. I waited. I posted videos and waited. After a month, I gained few subscribes and likes. I decided to hide my face like most seers did. I realised Nana’s presence increased my viewers. Another month went by and I had people who actually supported me. I gain patrons which is still surprising to me, all thanks to Nana.
It was last Wednesday, in the late afternoon while going through my old emails I stumble upon a pleading request that caught my eye. It was a year old mail with anonymity of its sender;
“Dear Miss
There is a problem that needs solving and I knew no way out of it. I have a request and I presume you won’t deny the offer. Please I beg you do not deny me. I am deeply troubled. There is a young girl who needs help. I do not know who can help her. As for the moment I can only see you. She is in great danger. With talents like yours, I am sure you can be of some help. I have high hopes do not disappoint me please. I’ll attach the address, feel free to visit us. We can discuss about the payment later.
The girl’s mother doesn’t know about this. I want you to keep mum regarding this exchange. I am just a well-wisher of the family. I want the child to recover as soon as possible.
If I am asking too much please say so. I will be waiting for you.
Yours
A well-wisher”
sender; theeviljoker1990@gmail.com
It was pretty late for me to respond but my conscience did not allow me to overlook it any further; something was calling me there, I felt it in my bones so I wrote back.
“Dear Well-Wisher
I am extremely sorry for replying late. Pardon me as I just saw the message and if the offer is still on the table, I’d like to help. Though I sincerely hope the situation is better. Please let me know if you still need my assistance.
Sybil”
I wonder if I am jinxed because whenever I am asked for help I cannot deny them my service. I am neither a doctor nor a healer; I am just a medium with a gift to see. I have made this my profession, though my fee is hardly sufficient for survival. It’s a tough life but somehow I am living a minimalist life scurrying away from luxury.
I got an instant reply from the sender. An invitation from the evil joker, the message did not shake me as the address did “Come” he wrote with the address attached to the mail that had haunted me for years.
Granny used to tell me, “Never stare too long to your past that’s already gone; do not lose sight of what’s in the front”, and I had always moved past my personal tragedies. The address was my unresolved past, calling me for closure. It still haunted me. I had avoided venturing to those dark days even in my dreams, now it was calling me once again; to solve the mystery I was akin to. I could not say no, it wasn’t just the money. I was more curious than cautious. I wanted to know and that! My friend is where the trouble starts.
My granny used to say, God gives and takes in abnormal proportion. He gives pain, rather pours it to some individuals and showers gifts and talents to compensate. That’s how art is created and an artist is wretched. His/Her talent is what God has bestowed to pay for the personal damages, an apology from the divine. That’s why all the artists are damaged beings. She told me the same when we discovered my gifts. Granny was the only family I cared and had happy memories with, and all the rest seem like a bad dream I try my best to erase.
The address was of a building in the heart of the town; a locality that was surprisingly not congested even after two decades, tall buildings stood with odd colours paints around this town but this locality was different. In its oddity there was some mystery lurking; the rents weren’t high here because of which it was never empty.
This was that segment of my town where the outsiders, like workers from remote villages would come for a comfortable life. This was a place where we shared a bathroom and toilet with five more families, standing in queue for drinking water and it was the same area prone to unregistered crimes. The building was separated, but surrounded by a village and a graveyard. The residents were so lazy to cut down the weeds off the ground that it looked like a ruin in the middle of a marshland.
The benefactor was either playing a prank or he was luring me into the labyrinth of my own past, somehow I could not turn my back, I could not say no. I have never said no to such requests. God knows someday this will be the death of me.
A year ago there was a fire in this part of town; it was all over the news. Newspaper had printed a blazing building on its front page. I don’t read newspaper but it was one of those days I did. No one knew about the source of fire, who started it and why? The fire killed a family of three and their neighbour, the damage was severe. They sealed the compound; that was all. A year later the building looked unscratched in its gray glory. It stood alone in the middle of green untidy grassland as always.
There were few societies like these around town. Usually places like these are filled with mixed energies. It was next to impossible to find the haunted as all these humans were haunted by misfortunes of life. I had been addicted to the cardamom seeds since early childhood. I made sure to carry a handful when travelling. This habit of mine became rewarding at the moment. A sewage pipe had burst near the base of the building, few workers were gathered around the source; a sturdy lady came out of her house with a ladle in her hand, folding the long maxi gown she started cussing on top her lungs at the municipality workers who were fixing the pipes just below her balcony, the workers took no notice of the pugnacious lady.
I followed the energy as I was given the address without a name or an apartment number; somehow I knew which room the evil joker wanted me to visit.
When I was little I lived here with my step-father and my mother. We barely knew our neighbours then; they made little effort to know us. Few miles away outside the entrance was a graveyard; I believe it’s still there. I was fonder of tombstones than human friends and I had few of them anyway.
As I ascended towards my childhood home, there was a strong stench. Fear is a basic human instinct that is necessary for survival; there’s little to no difference when it comes to being brave or a fool and I don’t know what I was at the moment. I was too bold to confront my past but I wasn’t ready.
I felt a gust of déjà vu. The scream, the wailing and the alcohol odour was all fresh, here. This energy had not changed after many years and I abhorred every ounce of it. My past had no power over me yet it was a part of me of who I was. The wind here reminded me of terrifying history and I was chosen to unlock it. There was no turning back.
My step-father was an alcoholic and ex serviceman. My mother married him because he had money and she had none. For reasons unknown mother and granny never agreed on any topic. Granny told me later that my mother was an odd meat, her ego got the best of her but it was her submission which ended her life. I never asked about my biological father. I knew the day my mother married this obnoxious man, her life was in danger. I ignored my intuition. I was too young to act upon it. My granny was also against this union. They had a fight and my mother decided her own ending. Now I know that she was lonely, desperate for love which was not a vice nor a greed but a basic thing in life she was hungry for. Love is one pure feeling that you cannot create without an equal participation from another party. It should be mutual.
I was a shy child with stuttering tongue, odd like my mother; never answering back to my step father’s questions. He would complain to my mother. He once called me a retard when I didn’t reply his question. For me he was an intruder and he knew that.
The only good thing he did was that he bought a cat on my seventh birthday. It was a spotted cat with brown fur. I was very fond of watching Mowgli so I named it Bagheera. My mother thought it was a peace offering and the cat would solidify our relationship. I never asked her maybe I was too young to understand, was she ever happy with him?
After my mother’s death, Granny took me in and told me not to dwell in the past and gave me her cards to play. Granny was also addicted to marijuana she’d tell me it was some herb to calm her nerves. She told me once; our family was cursed when it came to men. Her husband, my grandpa died when mother was a toddler in a cradle. She said it like it was some trophy to live without a man. She prided upon never needing a man in her life; a blow to my mother as mother wanted to marry again. I believe granny knew his intention, she knew how wrong he was for both of us.
She was just twenty five when she married him. He had no parents or siblings to look after. Granny said it wasn’t love. My mother had been in love before; with him she tried so hard to be in love. All her life she was in denial. The marriage lasted for four years.
During those four years things changed from bad to worse. We didn’t know that my step father was prone to mood swings and that he had rum in his veins. It started after six months. His glass was always full after 7pm. After four more months, he was verbally abusive, after a year, he was physically abusive. I would cry when mother cried. Some nights he’d lock me inside the cupboard.
It was those days I developed a stuttering habit that later I was bullied for in school. One night, my step father came home with a bad temper. He hit Bagheera’s head, it was meant to scare me. My cat fell on the floor and fidgeted frantically and breathed his last with one last stretch. He killed my cat in front of me to teach me a lesson. Mother said it was an accident. He was sorry; he didn’t drink for two nights to show penitence.
Granny used to say – Men are magnificent beast of this planet, an animal on two feet. If you can tame men, they will nurture you like earth but most men are like deep oceans. You do not know the depth of it. You can drown or sail on its tides. Women are not like men; perhaps that’s why there is a struggle between these two. For a man is always attached to a woman. He seeks his mother in every woman he loves, that’s unconsciously done. The best breeds of these men are fathers and brothers, the worst kind are proprietors and colonisers. Yet women are not like them. Some are worse than men, powerful enough to bring down kingdoms of mighty nations, dangerous to uproot an entire dynasty; and if you ever get enough time to go through a detail history book; every war has a woman involved.
Some are worse than men, these women, in their submission and in their turmoil make rules for other women. Frailty was never a weakness but rather a gift of power and God knows devil sought for them than men, for the adversary knows where power lies.
Some nights were worse because my mother would not cry aloud but swallow her screams within; her soft sob itched my heart. I was so scared of my step-father that I prayed school hours to be longer. School was a solace, a home for me than the four walls with my mother. Yet my mind would drift to her as I sometimes had visions of her dead body. I grew feeble and darker. Mother thought it was because of the tape worm but it was my fear and hate. I was scared for her.
It so happened, my mother developed a habit an addiction. Surprisingly my step father sobered up but mother fell deep into the pit. So much that she began to sell her gold, even food from our kitchen pantry. My granny forced her into a rehab. When mother sobered up and step father began his course, it was one frustrating cycle.
It was my birthday, I still remember. Mother had bought a red dress for me. She decorated the house, though no guests were called for the party, it was just us. Granny called our house a pigsty; mother’s housekeeping skills were questionable. Granny told me once that our house had sinister aura and she didn’t like coming. She didn’t come that evening. How I wish she had.
It was one warm summer that year, not too hot for my foggy town of Darjeeling.
I try so hard to remember how I ended up on the graveyard that evening. I have no memory of my tenth birthday. The last memory I have of my mother is her radiant smile by the door waving me goodbye, she wore her favourite dress, a satin red dress. “I’ll be back by 4” she told me then. When I woke up the next morning, on a mossy tomb at a nearby graveyard, I ran for my home.
Although I do not remember the night before, I remember the detail of the day that followed; a lady was scrubbing the floor of my house which was red. My granny was sitting on the sofa; she never stayed at our place for more than few minutes. Her eyes were teary; she was listening to the man on the khaki uniform, there were few women in uniform too. A commotion that was a harbinger of ominous news that followed. I remember the scratching noise of the scrubbing on the floor.
Twenty years later, I was standing in front of the same apartment; nothing seemed out of place, not even the wooden door apart from the crucifix in the middle. I could sense the rumbling noise inside. I was at the right apartment.
A lady in her mid forties answered the door when I knocked. She kept the door ajar so her profile was visible. She had a skinny face, pale paper skin with deep set eyes and sharp nose. Her lips were thin; they parted in confusion when she saw me standing at her door. She tried to smile, her face stretched and I saw the fine lines on her forehead and crow’s feet by her eyes.
“Good afternoon.” I greeted.
“Oh, I was waiting for you.” She put her feeble hand on her mouth. Her lips were trembling, her eyes turn moist. I was utterly confused.
She welcomed me inside. The room was just I had left with different furniture and different wall paint; though the walls were painted in aquamarine delight it was far from giving it a happy colour; the whole aura of the house was grim. It made my head ache. I studied the room, I could feel it yes, but I was confused. Was it the current energy or my past that was calling?
The odour was unbearable for me, strong enough to make cardamom seeds disappear from my tongue. My peripheral visions were clear, yet I felt myself being trapped in a den. A year later the walls still had the smell of fire and a strange nipping coldness.
“Please have a seat” the pale woman, the mother cordially offered. I was too engrossed with my vision, to study her but with just a glimpse at her I notice she was sleep deprived. She had a thick shawl over her body; she wore a wrapper that covered her legs. There was something very sinister about her gaze. She smiled sleepily and I shivered at the revelation. I felt a piercing pain inside my chest. I should not show fear I reminded myself. I shrouded myself with a calm facade, indeed I had two choices, to run away or to confront the forces that brought me in. The woman was a pawn. There was something darker and dangerous creeping inside the house.
About visiting the past, I am always reminded of Lot’s wife from the Holy Bible, when the angels burned down the city of Sodom and Gomorrah; they were strictly instructed not to turn back to the city. Lot’s wife must have had memories and attachment to the city she was born into; she looked back and was instantly turned into a pillar of salt. Not a stone statue but a salt pillar; and I always wondered why salt? Was she crying when she turned back? Is it because of that our tears are salty?
The house had a wide living room and a narrow passage that led to the bed rooms. To the farthest end was the washrooms, the owner had placed a shoe rack in the passage. This part of the house was wooden, probably a place where it must have caught fire.
As I entered the inside of the house I heard ragged breathing, like an old woman trying to sleep. This was my room, a door less room of the small space of 7 by 10; the bed was messy, someone was trying to sleep, tossing and turning under the quilt; the night stand was a white wooden board with a lamp. This part of the house was always dark; the lights flickered in every five seconds taking its intervals to make the inside look more eerie.
My vision was playing games again, the gift that I was blessed with had its dark side, it made my reality blur; it made me do things that was out of my control. My gifts were my curse. I knocked at the wooden wall and cleared my throat. The quilt stopped moving.
“Go away” the voice inside the quilt said.
It was a voice of a young teenage girl.
“It used to be my home” I told her, “this used to be my room.”
I could see her dark curly hair flowing down the bed, it was like Medusa’s locks but she had no snakes to turn me into stone, she uncovered her face slowly. I saw her pale forehead, her dark deep eyes, pressed in the hollow of her skull; her nose was sharp and her cheek bones prominent. She too had a paper thin skin. And just like her mother she too was dead.
She looked at me with her head upturned from the bed.
“So you are that girl” she said.
I wasn’t surprised knowing that she was a dead girl.
“How can I help you?” I knew she needed help.
“You cannot help me” her voice was sad as she sat up; her back facing me, she was naked. Her pale body was skinny one could count the knots off her spin. Her back had blue bruises and scratched marks. Her bushy hair covered her shoulders.
She whispered but I could hear it clearly, “I hate him. I hate him so much” she started crying.
I knew that feeling. I knew how hatred made one weak, the repercussion is equal at both ends.
I drew closer to her and sat beside her. I knew she would not harm me.
“You should not hate him” I told her, even if someone deserves to be hated, it deprives a person their peace.
“How would you know? I hate him. I HATE HIM!” she screamed.
She started crying, there is strange thing about energies for one who believes, it travels in the air and rests to whoever is receptive, and that’s one of the reason why people get possessed or healed while some don’t.
She cried and whispered again “I hate myself. He touches me and I hate myself when he touches me. I am too weak. I don’t want to be touched” She cried, hugging herself, her hands were pale and long. My memories resurfaced again, I could not stop my tears. This is a trap i told myself.
I felt her touch; she placed her head on my lap. Her eyes were dry, “He beats me when I make noise. I can’t even hide. Nobody believes me when I tell them about him. They call me a liar, attention seeker. They tell me I am crazy. I am not crazy. Tell me, do you hate your father too?”
I don’t anymore. “I used to but I forgave him”
She looked at me, her eyes were deep red now , “But he wasn’t your father, was he?” she fixed her eyes on me.
“No, he wasn’t but I hated him for million reasons and one of them was that he wasn’t my father”
She recoiled in bed, “I hate him because he is my father.”
“Each of their own. What he did was wrong? He paid for it, in this life and the life that is after ; but you, my dear girl you must go to sleep. It was never your fault. You never asked for it. He was a vile man and he is not worthy of your hatred. Forgive.”
“I can’t” she covered her head. “I won’t”
“If you cannot forgive him you will be miserable here, this will be your prison and you will revisit this horror every day. Release yourself from this hell. My girl, forgive him.”
She tossed and turned in the bed. Two rules from the rules to follow, 1. Never turn back when they call your name. 2. Never touch a ghost.
Of course there must be some rules like never get inside a den of ghosts but I just ruled that one out.
Spirits are deprived of emotions and feelings until it is a spirit trapped in a limbo. This was her limbo and it was a sea of emotions. She had trapped herself and the only way out was letting go, she needed to fall asleep. I was trapped with her. The girl was not aware of her death, the woman (her mother) however was. This was the room where the fire had started a year ago, killing her family and the one human next door. The girl had trapped the victims with her in this limbo, and I was a fresh addition.
There was a knock on the door; I saw a flicker of shadow rushing towards the door. The mother ran through the corridor, her black shawl covering her path, she didn’t reach the door, she’d run but she would never reach the door to open. The corridor was her track, her own limbo she didn’t escape.
The knock at the door was louder.
“He’s coming” the girl panicked and sat up. I saw the burn marks on her chest. Her body was charred flesh, she had no idea of. She had forgotten the physical pain; her heart must have ached so. I covered my mouth as tears oozed down my eyes.
I do not understand how people inflict other people with pain. I can never understand this how people damage other people, especially their own.
I wanted to get out but more than anything I wanted this soul to rest in peace. She deserved it at least in death; I wanted her to part in peace.
“Stay with me” she begged. “If you stay with me, he won’t harm me.”
“You are stronger than you think, girl. You don’t need anyone to make you strong.”
The knocking at the door increased, “Open the door” the man outside the door shouted.
The shadows at the corridor ran with full speed but didn’t reach. I heard the mother cry.
“I am not strong. I can never escape this.” She squat down by the bed with her hands clutching her hair.
“Even I was not strong but I escaped.” I told her.
“How did you do that?” she looked at me.
I sat beside her. “I was too young to understand but I knew it was wrong. He … never beat me but I felt assault in a different way. The way he looked at me, the way he touched me. I hated him then and I hated myself because I couldn’t understand why I was feeling so… so awful. I had no friends to talk to but I always wished I had. He killed my only friend, my pet cat. I thought I would never forgive him. Yes, I hated him. I still get angry sometimes and even with my mother, but I forgive him because hating him was depriving me of the happiness I deserved. It’s a choice one makes. You are so strong; you have idea about your powers. You do not deserve this. No one deserves this. Hating him gives him power, that’s what they want. So release yourself”
I could see that her eyes were drowsy; I could see her lashes dropping. Her head rested on my shoulder, her touch was cold on my skin.
Rule no 2
Never touch a ghost though I wanted to hug like I wanted to be hugged by my mother.
Some souls just connect like dots with their similar tragedies. I could see myself in her. My heart was brimming with empathy but it was too late for her salvation.
“I am dead. Aren’t I?” she asked me
“Aren’t we all in our own ways?”
“I am glad you came.” I wish I was there with her when she was alive. I could have helped her more. Indeed – Remorse is a form of punishment itself.
It took just a blink and my vision returned. I was sitting at the ruins. It wasn’t my room anymore, the door wasn’t knocking. I had my back against the remaining of her bed, a rusty cast iron. The floor was all dust and ashes, the French windows and walls were reduced to black coal. It was a very cold place. Dusk was setting in; I was free from the limbo that was hers. It was indeed a den of auras and it had many limbos but I had escaped the strongest, the one that called me. I walked towards the door. I saw the mother walking beside me. I paid no attention to her.
“Are you leaving? Don’t go. He will kill us all.” She whispered into my ears.
This is the reason why living beings are more powerful than the dead; we have many options to choose while they have few. We get chances to improve. We have hope as long as we have life in us. Perhaps that’s why they envy us and want to live the life they were forced to bid adieu. They crave for this chance, this hope.
There was a knock on the door again. The ghost chuckled, “Now… now, How will you leave?”
“Open the door” I could hear an angry man banging his fists on the door “Open it now or I’ll break the door”
I rushed towards the door and turned the knob; I noticed a new being through my peripheral vision. I stopped. It was my mother’s satin red dress floating in the air. “Sybil” she called.
“My child”
Rule no. 1
Never turn back.
I turned the knob and opened the door. There was another ghost inches away from my face outside the door; it was the woman with a ladle. I avoided eye contact with her. I was panting heavily. I saw that her leg was burned and so was the half of her body, I didn’t look past her waist.
“Are you going to leave like that?” she followed me down the stairs. “Aren’t you going to do something about the situation here? The girl is suffering. We are suffering.”
She must have been a very nosy and a noisy neighbour. I rushed to down the steps, her voice vanished. The municipality workers were still mending the pipe. One of them noticed me coming down; his eyes opened wide, “Miss you aren’t allowed in this compound. Didn’t you see the notice at the gate?” he pointed towards the gate. I apologized. I had not noticed that before, the entrance gate was algae worn. I told myself not to turn back to the building. I could still feel their stares following me.
It reminded me of Lot’s wife when she escaped Sodom and Gomorrah, I knew I would not turn into a pillar of salt but I knew not what had followed me, I kept telling myself. “Just reach gate. Don’t turn back.”
I heard another worker mumble, “Bloody Journalists…..” it must be the coat that I was wearing which gave him that impression.
And again I heard someone say “How come these pipes have all the dirt when no one lives here”
I reached the gate. I could not contain the curiosity within me. I turned back to see. It wasn’t the same building that I had entered in the afternoon, though this was the same one without the magic. It was a torn down building, burned a year ago and never repaired. I saw a poster at the entrance that I had ignored before, someone had written “Haunted Building” with charcoal. The whole building was a disfigured monument. It takes a strong magic to create a mirage, an illusion of such finesse. Few stories above the ground I saw a pale figure in red dress staring at me.
It wasn’t too dark; I took a shortcut through the graveyard. The grass was taller here, tombs were mossy. Years ago I used to spend few minutes here after school, talking to these tombstones, believing that they’d actually listened to me. I had no friends and home was hell of its own. I used to believe that there were people inside the tombs who cared for me and listened to me, and now with my gifts of vision I was here again to visit my old friends.
I stood on the ground and I called out “Is anybody here?”
I was disappointed to find silence greeting me. There was no soul in the graveyard. It was all the bodies, dead and hollow inside the tomb. The graves were just empty. Perhaps that’s why the houses in the town are so crowded these days. The ghosts do not live in the grave anymore; they live among us to haunt us, to keep us company.
We humans are already haunted by our pasts; the dead can do just a little damage.
I reached home exhausted that evening. I couldn’t find Nana; well she does that sometimes. You can try but never master a cat. Cats are nobody’s pet. They live in their own terms.
I sat down for my evening session with a prayer to cut myself off all the evil energy. A message pinged on my cell phone and I became aware, my email was open all this time.
A new message in the inbox with no subject.
“Thank You” it read.
Sender; theeviljoker1990@gmail.com
Hate is such a strong word for this lifetime; it burns the limited happiness that’s given to us. I pray and hope that none of us submit to this flame of hatred. My heart goes out to all the survivors who survived life at its harshest moments and who are still haunted by the past. We all are victims with our battle scars too afraid to tell our tales, because we feel judged. There is always a competition even in our pain, I do not know who started it but they shut us every time. They tell us to be strong like living isn’t an act of bravery in itself. I question myself often, who’s the real culprit? I can only see victims everywhere. We shut ourselves not because there’s nobody to listen but there’s really no one to understand.
1 in every 3 women is abused before the age of 18 and when we talk about abuse and molestation it has no have genders. People in general who molest women do not spare boys. 1 in every 5 boys is molested before the age of 18. Approximately 20% of every female in the world and 8 % of every male are sexually abused.
According to Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care
“7,200 children including infants are raped every year and it is believed that several cases go unreported. India has the world’s largest number of CSA (Child Sexual Abuse) cases; For every 155th minute a child, less than 16 years is raped, for every 13th hour child under 10, and one in every 10 children sexually abused at any point of time.”
Sanskari 