The Secret place

The Stranger

I wake up from my dreams. I am sweating. My eyes are horrified. Breath is coming out of my mouth. I am breathing heavily. Terror is running through my vein, and I don't know why but my body is filled with pain.

"What just happend?"  I ask myself. "Why I am terrified?" 

As soon as the sound of the question fades, the dream pops up in front of me like a shadow. It seems like someone is telling me, here is your answer. My head is filled with panic and I am sweating even in this falling daylight of winter. I pull away the blanket, and let the wind blow away the darkness.

I take my body up from the bed and walk towards the wardrobe. Warm clothes are urgently needed.

My eyes move away towards the pond beside my house, the water is dark now. The daylight has gone some time ago. After putting on the sweater I move towards the window, I look outside. The view is beautiful, I am a resident of the village yet never understood the beauty of the trees until I spent 3 years in Kolkata. They say everything comes with a price. Maybe that's the reason Kolkata might have grown up very much but is also filled with pollution. But whatever about this pollution, I am still missing these college days and my friends.

A gentle smile comes on my face. Smile! What happened? Maybe there is no answer to this material world but in my mental dialogue. My inner voice says to myself, "You are not missing them, you are missing their memories."   Yeah! True, I am missing the moments they have given me. Well, isn't it the real thing most of the time? I laugh in my head after asking this question to myself.

In the lamp post light, I can see the dogs crawling around the piece of food. I have told my friends that I will go to Babu's place to meet them. Well, I guess that I might be late if I don't leave now. I take a U-turn from the window and go towards the front door of my room. I might have left the door open and just run run and run. But something got my attention before I reach the door. It's a book. Oh, sorry it's "the" book. The book which I bought while returning from Kolkata. There are two copies of them. One is newly covered and seems newly printed while the other one seems quite old enough with a raggy covering.

"Wait!"  I say to myself. "Isn't it the same book which I have seen in my dream today?" 

I move towards the books and checked both of them out from cover to cover. I used to know that dreams are black and white, they say that science suggests this. But I have gotten an idea or a theory you can say made in my head which lacks any and every kind of scientific, research evidence, please don't put me into jail for saying this without any scientific evidence, well I think that dreams may have colours, but we do not notice it due to the fluid nature of events. Or in other words, it can be said we are unable to detect the colours of the dream. And maybe that's the reason most of the dreams we see and most of the parts that we see vanish as soon as we wake up.

I am not a researcher on this topic nor have I learnt much about these dreams, but with my experience, I have always noticed that dreams have a fluid nature which does not stay in one shape as the story progresses. It changes and most of the time, all we remember is the last part of the dream, or I think we only remember the feeling that the last part of the story has given us. Nothing else!  Maybe it's the feeling through which we can stumble upon the true story. And that's where I have got a problem this time.

Well, I used to believe in this thing. But if this is true how can I remember the whole dream with everything in it? And this time I even have the perfect understanding of the colours and how is it possible? These questions pop up in my head.

But after thinking a little bit I got some of the other valid or semi-valid explanations for them. Although I know the real term which should be included to describe the validity of my explanation is nothing but one word, "Invalid". But still, I want to convince myself by saying that I may not know everything about this world.

And at this very moment, when I have gotten a semi-satisfied mind, another question pops up in my mind and leaves me to do nothing but wonder. And I can say that for this question I have not gotten any answer nor any explanation.
"What about the coldness you felt there and even if it's nothing but the cold winds in your bedroom, still what about the smell you felt there? You still remember them, don't you?" 

Here I have no answer. Really, before this point I have not felt any of them in my dream.

Thoughts start crowding in my mind. And Soon my mind which used to be a clear sky for a while has gone now been filled with storming clouds. Maybe another storm will start soon and I might be sitting at my desk for hours rather than going out. I got that clearly cause this type of overthinking is killing me these days. Maybe this overwhelming thing is killing humanity from the beginning. One thing that wonders me the most is that we got tuition for studies, whose syllabus may be a book or something more but we have not gotten any teaching for the most powerful device we carry, it is the thing that holds us up and also drags us down too. Yet, nobody cares to teach how to use it. What an education system we have!

I put on the muffler on my shoulder and shut the door from the inside and shut off the lights too. I came out of my house and I told my mother, "I am coming in a while." 

The daylight has fallen long ago. Now it's evening. The light of the lampost beside my house is glistening. I am moving through that path. The road is almost empty and there are very few people around me except the street dogs.

This road has been made new. Before that, it was a mud road. I can remember the days when I have fallen into the mud on rainy days and went home with terror in mind, hiding the mud in my shirt with all my might.

"But now the days are gone!"  I say to myself. Just like nature, we change and things go by. It's sad but something that goes once returns never. Maybe this is the reason philosophers tell us to embrace the present moment as this is the only way we can live. And anyway, otherwise, things just go by and we don't realise that the dream we were dreaming has now developed into a new dream. All we have lost are the moments that we might be able to feel truly alive with.

A smile comes to my face as the cold wind from the paddy field comes to my face. My stairs fall on the lampost. Every day I have looked at it, it seemed beautiful. And it is looking beautiful two.

But!

There is one thing more that is not letting me stay comfortable.

In this soft cold mist, in front of my eyes, all that I can see is a black coat man standing in the lampost, staring at me. This was terrifying enough for me to run terror through my veins. But there is something more to shock me even more.

Although the man is staring at me I can see anything on his face or his body, it seems as if he is nothing but a shadow staring at me. And what's more terrifying is that I don't have any reasons to prove my logical mind it might be my fault cause the light has fallen from his backside and you can't see anything when it falls this way. I tried to make my logical mind fall asleep.

But, this doesn't work this time. Maybe I am using the same set of silly tricks that my parents used to use when I refuse to do things they wanted. But anyway, how can I explain that it is not a shadow but a human, cause even if light falls from my backside I might be able to see some part of his nose, hands, feet or some other part of his body where the light has fallen. But, no! I can't see anything.

This time I almost lost my mind. I have read several horror fiction stories and even about real encounters(at least that's what they write on the front cover) but never thought that these exact things will happen to me too.

After coping with these discoveries, I was just able to stand for a while but still, there was something for me to notice more. I have looked at the man but hadn't looked at his feet, maybe there can be something that can give some food to my logical mind that 'Hey, here are his feet and you were fearing all the time.'

With this hope in mind, I look at his feet. But things don't go the same way I wanted them to. I am unable to see any sign of his leg or feet. But also in addition to this, there is something more which I hadn't noticed yet, but I should have.

Now, cold terror runs through my vein, I am staring at a man who has no shadow of his own.