Bugs Bite

EPILOGUE

Everyone has seen ghosts. Or everyone does, at some point in their lifetime, once at least. Whether they admit it or not.

Maybe it was a lady who batted her eyelashes at you in the shopping precinct. Maybe it was your own reflection in the mirror you saw while taking a leak - only it was moving before you did. Maybe it was an ugly, botched woman you felt by your bedside, but as soon as you turned to face her, she just wasn't there; still, you know she was real because you had met her hollow, undead eyes right before she had vanished into thin air. Or maybe you once saw a cat, a striped Siamese, say - and you saw something glistening in the pits of its eyes, something red and fierce and not of this world. Or maybe you saw a figure in the mists, a spinning, curling glimpse of seemingly an animal, a haphazard windblown delineate you discerned through your frigid window.

No one believes when you tell them, of course. No one ever does.

For Radha's mother, Preeti, the ghost was no conventional entity. Her ghost was no phantom or specter which instantaneously wrung fear in the heart, chilling and haunting and making you run for the hills. Her ghost was that of her own father, who had been a drunkard but a good man. Who had stabbed his wife nearly to death, but had been a good man. Who had sworn like a sailor, but had been a good man. Who had taken his last breath abusing his wife, but had been a good man. In the end Preeti had regretted not doing anything to bring out his better side.

So once grown and married to the man of her dreams - a man who had been the correct replica of her own father - she decided she would not regret letting this man undergo the same fate. She had to do something, and so she did. She bore all his blows in prideful silence, always using words and subtle actions to turn him to the bright side. Time went by, their daughter grew up, but her husband did not change. It wasn't until he was struck by a death-assuring disease that he turned. Turned into the man every woman yearns for. A man that resides in every man, but a man that always gets stubbed.

Her online book - "SSDD: Same Shit, Different Day" - wasn't read by many. But writing it bought an immense satisfaction to her heart, and she foolishly believed that writing that book had been the sole purpose of her meaningless life.

And, incidentally, the last words of that book were: Follow me to my afterlife.

The same words the lunatic in Bhoo's tale - the one he recited to Avish as a kid - had wrote on his ward's wall in his blood.

For Radha's father, Avish - well, his story has already been told. It needs no more telling. All ends tied, all strings accounted for.

His story could, in a much varied form, be your story.

Or mine.

Or all of our stories.

The man in black - his prediction came true, of course. Avish died on December the 29th. Time of death: 2 a.m. The time when the clock was his. The time of his birth, the time of his death. The time of the man in black.
He died seeing his old pal, Bhoo, for the last time. He died knowing he had surpassed his father. He died grateful, that he had people he loved and people who loved him.

He died, in fact, not in a hospital or a vehicle; he died in his favorite recliner, much like his own grandma. He greeted Death with open arms.

As for Radha - hers is a story that lies in her own hands. We can but hope that hers is a tale that people tell in the future - that this is the daughter of Avish, daughter of love, daughter of life.

We can only hope that the bed bugs do not get her as well.