Ravings of a Mad Woman
I stopped in my tracks and looked back quickly. Did I hear a low whistle? Did I feel as if a hand made of breeze carefully pushed back the hair falling just on my left shoulder back while the other parting stayed intact. A raindrop fell on my cheek right just then. Oh wait! It isn’t raining. It was just another hot summer day. I peered onto the bright skies peeking in between the overhanging trees from both sides creating a beautiful filter for the golden beams to pass through.
Something about a normal walk on this new trail was making me really nervous, but I slowly continued on.
I saw an old lady walking in the distance and the sight of an another human comforted me. I could tell she was older from her short grey hair, an old fashioned black and white striped hat and a matching ensemble of clothing underneath which was an unusual choice for a walk in this sunny weather. She appeared to have a cane but was walking at almost as the same pace as me. I couldn’t figure out the cane part as she walked with so much grace that it almost felt that she was drifting in the wind and I was chasing a shadow. Or was I chasing some shadow unknowingly?
I stopped again on the side of the path and checked the time on my phone. It was five past six in the evening. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, letting the blaring music over the headphones cradle my face as I regained composure. I had not been myself since I lost someone whom I loved deeply to an accident a month ago. It had been difficult to control the flow of my thoughts, whereupon my weary brain would weave innumerable tales spiked in fantasy to unite with him again. Sometimes I let it play out till the end, even if I wake up from one of these trances whimpering and broken even more. This was the first time I had stepped out in a long time and wanted to set out on the trails which we would both explore almost every day. A shrill bell of a bike whisking past me made me lurch on the side and suddenly I found myself slipping through the overgrown bushes, rough stones and gravel down an uncarved path that didn’t seem to have an end and I blacked out.
When I came to, I felt like time had not passed at all and I was looking up at the same chunks of the sunny skies beyond the green natural crochet. Had I not fallen off the edge? Or was I spiraling in the web created by my mind again? My eyes met another curious pair looking down on me and I shrieked at the stranger who stood up hastily taken aback. A boy of almost the same age as mine stood above me holding out his hand to help me nervously. I got up on my feet without his help and checked on the time lost.
It was still five past six. How is that possible?
On asking about it, the boy explained that he had just seen me fall down unconscious right when he passed by and could see no bruises on my body indicating any major fall. I dusted my clothes and observed that I felt no pain apart from the tender blues in the muscles caused by the intense walk in the uneven terrain. I nodded a thanks and started walking back to return home and the boy now followed balancing his bike between us. I expressed my gratitude again and said that he could proceed with his exercise but he insisted on accompanying me till the trail led out to the main road.
Unsurprisingly, we struck a conversation out of the odd occurrence of just walking next to each other. He asked me why I had chosen to come this far along on the trail. He stated that this was more of a biking trail and he had hardly seen any joggers so far along. I told him about stopping at one of the crossroads and venturing onto one of the new trails I had never explored before. The new direction and sign boards which was easily visible as the landscape architects had just completed some work in the area had been helpful. I even told him about the old lady who was somewhere far along on the same route hearing which I saw him shift nervously and look around with caution. I wondered what that meant but chose not to prod further.
As we made our way on a steeper path, crossing the withering field marigolds and beautiful wild flowers, he struggled to pull his bike alongside. I instantly offered to help and grabbed at the tail end brushing his hand accidentally and felt a chill run through my spine. My hand was right over his thumb and it was as if I had just dipped it in a chilly cloud of nothing. He looked at me sharply and said he could handle it. I quickly withdrew my hand and curled my fist nervously. I felt him observing me with a solemn face and treading on. I knew something was off. I now wondered if we were in the right direction and if I was going back towards home or was marching on even deeper into the woods. My throat went sore making me cough a bit and he offered me water. I looked at the bottle suspiciously and then at him. This was the first time I was looking at him carefully. He had the most beautiful face with the kindest smile ever.
‘You know’, he said softly and I nodded tearing up slightly, afraid and not knowing if what I had just concluded was right or if confessing the same to him was a wise decision.
Though my heart rattled inside me and my skin opened up pores spreading more shiny glitter on my brow, I asked him if he was leading me in the right direction. He nodded sincerely. I pulled up my phone, still suspicious and did a quick google map search while he watched me intently. Home was just a forty-minute walk away and I was in the right direction. I inhaled deeply and slipped the phone in my pocket and faked a smile. My brain still could not decipher if I was still in a trance or this was actually happening. Maybe I was still standing at the same spot, my eyes closed and the music drowning my real self into an alternate dimension I had just created in my mind. ‘I know this is not real’ I confided to myself and chose to let the story play out. That is when it happened again. The touch of that invisible force. The same strong breeze hit my face again and something unseen pushed me back forcefully in the opposite direction.
I staggered and could have fallen back again but my savior reached out to help again. As his cold grip tightened around my waist, my feet sensed water and my running shoes were suddenly wet and dripping. As I grappled with the bizarre chain of events surrounding me, I felt like I crashed into an invisible wall of water that made me choke and struggle as I felt my body rising in tremendous speed towards the uncoordinated green foliage of the trees now broken in ripples above me. As my flailing hands struggled to hold onto something in the blinding sea of green, my screams were dissolved in the huge mass of water that engulfed me from all sides. A hand tried to pull me by my collar into the skies as I watched in horror into the flood of turquoise beneath me where my rescuer now was hanging by one of my feet, a menacing figure with black hollowed out eyes and melting skin, snarling and scratching at my leg fiercely.
It was an abrupt scream that rang out as my body escaped the water mirage and came out onto the land. I coughed and spluttered now completely soaked and horrified but it didn’t end there. I clambered back as far as I could when I saw that the person who had pulled me out. It was the same old lady whom I had seen drifting into the woods earlier. She slowly handed me my phone which was also dripping wet and its screen shattered to a great extent — the time was still five past six.
‘Run,’ the old lady wheezed and I ran. I ran like I had never run before. My feet knew where to turn and where to ascend. I was crying aloud all the way up to the main road and continued the strange chase against something unnatural all the way home ignoring the intense and curious glares that followed me all the way.
Mum says I was in bed with high fever for almost a week slipping in and out of consciousness. But exactly at five past six in the evening I would wake up screaming asking for a boy and a woman on a peculiarly named trail about whom she had never heard from me before this incident. She ended up asking my friends who ran a google search to find these people and came up to me with a strange collection of stories for me once I recovered.
Apparently, freighter trains ran along the line of one of the trails back in the 1990s. A widow from an influential and respectable family who had been accused of being part of a drug smuggling ring was trying to escape with her teenage son hiding between the packages. But with the cops on her tail, she decided that it was best she left her son behind for some foster family to take care of and made a risky jump into one of the ravines from the running train hoping to end her misery. The son made a feeble attempt to try and stop her and, in the process, got swept away and got killed under the tracks mercilessly. The lady survived.
A long trial of almost two years and the proof of the smuggling route through the freighter trains ended the use of the track further and the lady was sentenced to life time jail period of twenty-five years. Years later it was replaced as part of a jogger’s park. People nicknamed it ‘The Lost Boy’ trail and thus ensued a lot of rumors of people disappearing and ghost sightings which made the government close the same declaring it unsafe. The widow had just been released a few years back and had fought for the renovations that had led to the new sign boards and the journey I set on unaware about the stories.
‘Look at what she says to the daily in the article we found,’ one of my friends tapped a few words into my phone and turned it towards me and to display a picture of an old newspaper clipping. The phone seemed to have no damage. I gasped as my eyes recognized the two familiar faces.
‘He is there and is still trapped,’ the daily quoted the widow,’ All he craves for is a friend. And he is not the only one. There is a place down there, where all the lost souls are waiting to be heard. We need to let them in’ , she pleaded.
It was concluded as ravings of a mad woman but somehow her family wealth and influence had found a way to unlock the pathway to hell to unsuspecting humans. I stared at the phone as the background faded and sweat formed on my palms. I looked up and felt a darkness surround me as the vision of my friends and their voices drowned into a dark fog of fear and despair. My eyes caught a glance of the only object shining across me on the wall. ‘It is five past six,’ I shivered. There was that low whistle again as a cold breeze parted a side of my hair and a ‘tear’ fell on my cheek.
