A Writer's Life

Pageviews last month

Saturday, November 23, 2019

You Can't Get Away


Ok so, now I wanted to be free. Liberate myself of all the guilt. Determined to start my new life in this new apartment I now rented and called my own. I am having a house-warming party today. My friends are coming. I can’t wait to have more people around me. More people are equal to less loneliness and less time to think the things I don’t want to think about; to stop driving my mind to the steer clear roads of the past where there is no street light and the darkness creeps me now. The dark lanes led to this accident. The accident that not only took the life of the victim but made me a victim myself. I should have been more careful but just when that thought occurred to me, it was late. I had taken life by mistake and this mistake had cost me my own life too. I could see her wherever I went. The guilt in me made me see it. I thought about this. What about the people who murder others for their own benefits? I don’t know what happens to them inside their brains but to me, they look happy and rich. While here I am, an accident by mistake, for heaven’s sake, it was a mistake and nothing more than that. I regret to this day why and how could I take that life. But I couldn’t help. Her life was taken by me by accident. And now, I see her everywhere. Only crowds keep her away from me. I read the newspapers every day. Every day, I look into the classifieds section; where I can find some funfair in the city and go there and find a bench to sit on and see how much happiness is around me. The fun and laughter of the children and the shrieks! Yes, shrieks sure scare me but not the ones from the children in their excitement enjoying the fun thrilling rides. It’s alive! This place is alive! But I dread going home. I dread it when everybody leaves the fair for their homes. I wish someone would adopt a 40 something me. But I know that’s never going to happen. Tonight is the night when she will come for me again, for the last time. My psychologist says she is on my mind. My subconscious is playing tricks on me and I am hallucinating. Well, that’s what the science says. But karma and the universe have a language of their own. I don’t want to think about the later but the former. I have to save myself and stop this guilt button that’s always on. It was a mistake. I want to forgive myself first before asking her soul for forgiveness.

Tonight she came to me at half-past 2. I awoke, heard her call out my name, “Helen, you cannot escape me.” Saw her white chalked face and rotten teeth and her messy hair. That was enough to frighten the wits off of me, but not again. This repetition has to stop tonight. I summoned all the guts I possibly could have and asked her to stop visiting me. She blatantly said in her echo-ghost, male-female voice, “NO”. I told her she is powerless to which she responded in anger by using her telekinetic powers and destroying my new house setup. I waited for her to stop, even though I so wanted to close my ears and shut my eyes and imagine myself somewhere else. But no, not today. I looked into her red eyes and I kept looking. I told myself repeatedly I deserve her forgiveness. I said it aloud.

Time froze. There was chillness in the air. She stopped and came closer to me, so much closer to me that our noses almost touched. I was scared and couldn’t do anything to regularize my heartbeats. But I sure made up a stone face and looked at her chin, as to meet eyes at such short distance was impossible at least for the living me. I told her, yes I deserved her forgiveness because I didn’t intend to kill her. It wasn’t my fault that there were no street lights. It wasn’t my fault that she appeared before my car. It was her fault to have stood in the middle of the road, coming from nowhere in spite of seeing my headlights on, and flashing on the road. I told her, I was guilty once and shall always despise the happenings of that dreadful night but I was just a medium while in reality, it was her death calling. She was stunned, I assumed by her pin-drop silence after the loud chaos she displayed just moments before.

I sighed and was relieved to have spoken my heart and mind. I was no longer afraid of her reactions and as if I had just left a vibe of some sort, which if worded, would mean that I am superior to her, that I hold power over her and now I feel only remorse for her loss. She cried the cry of desperation…her cry meant so much more than her scary ways. It communicated much more. I almost hugged her. She got up and left. She never came back. I opened my eyes in real this time. I was at my psychologist’s and she had hypnotized me. I left the clinic very happy today, happy to be free but I did not understand the tears of sadness that accompanied my happiness. There was a vacuum in me. I felt this rush of sadness as if I lost someone my own. I told you, universe and karma has a way of its own. I left the building and was walking towards my car. For a second, I thought I saw her. I was about to turn my head sideways where I thought I had a glimpse of her seconds ago. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to give her a chance to overpower me today, even if she really was there. By now, I was good at pretending and I walked the walk of confidence and reached my car. I sat on the driver’s seat and fixed the position of my mirrors. It was then that I saw her. I knew this was real. My conscience was clear of guilt now but yet I saw her. If I went back to my psychologist, she would label me “mad” in polite, medical jargon. And if I freaked out now, she will know for sure, I am still afraid of her and would take pleasure in it. 

But I chose to feel for her. The genuine feeling of having lost your own life, your tomorrows, your plans, your relationships and everything you hold on to, so dearly in your living life. I felt for her these feelings but I did not leave my side too. I tried to remember how much trauma I have gone through too. So it is not that she alone is dead, a chunk of me is dead too. I don’t think too highly of myself like I used to. I have become sober. I miss her life more than she could even though that life belonged to her. But I had the responsibility. I looked at her, straight in the eye and my tears rolled out. She saw me cry for her. She came closer to me, flying on her feet it took her seconds to do so. I was scared of her, still. But I tried hard to remember that I am alive and that she isn’t. Technically, she is at the mercy of my conscience and guilt, which are the only ways of her ghost existence. She whispered in my ears, “I forgive you…only till the time, you forgive yourself.” I still see her when I am driving at my back seat, grinning and trying to overpower me. After all, I am a human and with an alive conscience. I can’t forgive myself totally. I saw her a few seconds ago again and then turned up the radio volume. A car came speeding by, and before I knew it, my car had hit the roadside tree and there was broken glass everywhere. I was lying there and I got an aerial view of myself. I knew the same instant that I am dead and that this was karma. The guy who drove the car had bruises too but he seemed fine otherwise. He was drunk and now was alert and scared. Scared he should be because I am raged. My tomorrows, my life, my plans, my relationships…my ….just now I saw her floating. I belong to her world now. We are together. 

No comments:

Post a Comment