The Insomniac

I discovered I was suffering from insomnia six restless nights ago while I was watching my favourite talk-show which was my pill to dozing off for six months. I’d usually write till 12, and then half-an-hour stroll where I’d think what to write further would pass to make me switch the idiot box on at 12:30 for The Daisy Dale Talk Show. Daisy Dale, an old widow, actually not so old, she still looks attractive, with black hair (perhaps dyed) and short dress would interview some celebrity every day. I loved the show for two reasons, the cute Daisy and the good thing it wasn’t like the usual talk-show that aired only on weekends.

Anyways, the insomnia breached my sense of creativity and I started losing words. I am a writer by profession. I have written ten novels so far, complete fiction, some had drama, some had brutality, some had action, and all had sex. In return, I got lots of fame and respect. Outside my town, the town of Biston, hardly anyone knows I’m an accomplished writer, with my Facebook page celebrating a new 50000-fans record. The reason may be that this hardly goes with my looks, and my age, which is just twenty eight. My wife used to tell me it was the result of my hard work. I could never explain to her there wasn’t any hard work in finding words really. They just came to me like thoughts. The fame and all were the things I got with pure luck.

But for six days, I struggled for words.

Kathy (I disliked calling her real name ‘Katherine’) was my wife. She died just a month ago when a huge iron rod she had held to hit me with slipped from her not-so-well-gripped hands and fell on her right toe, which made her lose her balance and somehow she fell backwards to roll down the basement stairs where she died. I miss her. I miss how she’d proudly hold my novel and run her index finger over the etched letters at the bottom of the cover which read Edward Robinson. That was me, and I miss our sensuous nights too.

‘Ed’, she’d whisper and sometimes moan while we made out.

That whisper was one of the things that used to keep me away from sleep. It would haunt me. Though I didn’t record any paranormal activity since a month, or didn’t believe in such things, the sound of pages turning and the switch of the table lamp switching on and then switching off fifteen minutes later that came from the basement horrified me so much that instantly I would feel the sleep coming in my eyes. This would happen between 3 to 3.30 am. The next morning when I’d muster courage to peep inside the basement where once she’d succumbed to her head injuries, I’d find no book there, just rags and trash and the table lamp would be at its usual place and condition at the far right corner of the room, broken and covered with dust, with its switch and wires all destroyed.

I had started to believe that this was her, trying to meet me, to complete what she had left incomplete. The feeling was petrifying, and I sensed I had been captivated at my home. She was an avid reader, and an even crazier reader of my novels. I loved that. She’d always talk about my characters as if they were real and suggested me ways to help them out their misery.

I was now sure she had some mental disease, and she might be getting epileptic seizures too, else why would she yell at me and hit me severely just to take revenge of the punishment I had given her last night for calling me to bed while I was writing: tying her to the bed and whipping her all night.

My nights would spend in making wrinkles on the bedsheet. I’d roll from side to side, put pillow on my head to cover my ears that had gone tired and scared of the late night lullaby the basement would sing, sometimes I’d scream, but the haunting feeling wouldn’t leave me. Even after switching the fans off and closing all the windows and doors, my hair would be caressed at Death Time Zone (3-3:30) and I’d receive slaps. The next morning, I’d see a mark on my slapped cheek. It all was happening instantly, and gradually, my fear changed into curiousity. If it was her, and I was sure it was her, then surely I’d love to meet her again, and tell her I missed all our moments, all the ones we spent on bed with lust and also the ones where we gave each other wounds and bruises.

I decided to stay courageous one night, though just the thought of it brought piss in my pants but I took ideas from the movies and they tell that in such situations, the poltergeist, or whatever you call it, wants to communicate with you. If it was my wife, we could surely recall our past and have a good chat, and who knows she might surrender herself to me on the bed all over again.

This thought brought an honest giggle.

 

The night had fallen, and it wasn’t the usual night I had been experiencing. Though it had the same eerie sounds and creepy feelings, it now involved me as I moved down the stairs with the torch in my hand, embracing the menacing Death Time Zone. For the first time since it happened, I thanked the sound of the pages and table lamp for keeping me awake. As soon as the clock had banged 3 and echoed, I stepped out of my bed.

I reached down as the wooden planks that comprised the stairs creaked from my weight. The basement was built around 40 years ago when my grandpa bought this home for my father. Since then, it was used as our playroom when the kids came and after we all grew up, it became a trash bin. Now, it was a ghost house.

I slowly crept in, my eyes alert to any sort of movement. A pungent smell had filled the room. The lights were switched on. The legs of the table kept at the very centre were homes of spiders now. Dust particles irritated my skin and my throat was on verge of choking. On the far corner, trash such as old notebooks, broken chairs and other furniture, and a broken lamp were placed. I made slow movements towards the empty table.

‘Hey.’ I spoke, ‘I’m here.’ The tone was joyous, as if ridiculing the poltergeist, or whatever they call it.

No reply. The atmosphere was creepily silent, as if the nature itself had gone to sleep. No sign of breeze or any car passing by, or even the rattling of the leaves, nothing. Pin-drop silence. Even there hardly seemed any chance of a pin falling to make any sound. The sweat streamed down my nose and trickled, making the first sound after the creaking stairs, the sound of the sweat drops falling on the wooden floor.

Not even a cricket thought of chirping that night.

BOWW!! BOWWWWGGHHH!!

‘Aaaaahhh!!!’ I screamed at the sound. It was a bark, I realized it the next moment, only after I tripped and fell on the wooden floor, close to where I had dropped my sweat.

BOWW…WHOOOF….AAGGHHH!

The same dog that barked every night at this time. Bloody son of a bitch! Ah, that suits it!

Gathering my senses, and a bit of my shattered courage and heroism, I picked myself up from the floor slowly, my eyes still alert to any movement.

Or a change in the scenario!

At the centre of the so-called empty table, now lay a paperback. It had a black cover, and perhaps there wasn’t anything written on it. Beside it, was the table lamp, in astonishingly perfect condition.

My eyes widened at the sight of it. For a moment, the sight of an unfamiliar book brought joy in my eyes, later did I realize the scenario I was in, the reason I was in here. I kept staring at the black book while my mind calculated the reasons and the consequences of my next act. Well, it was meant to be an interaction, wasn’t it? Perhaps it was the beginning.

I walked nearer to the table. Cool breeze had started coming in and kissing my pain away, the pain and torture that the sweat had given me. It lighted the mood a bit. I could now hear another sound, the sound of my heart beating like a drum.

As soon as my body got in contact with that of the table, a strange feeling of someone or something hovering over me terrified me. The book, which was kept at the centre, now slid towards me and opened all of a sudden. I wondered why I still didn’t piss in my pants.

 

HELLO MR. SINISTER!

 

I kept looking at the very first page of the book that had addressed me supposedly as a sinister. Surely, this was her. She never missed any opportunity to humiliate me.

Two-three pages turned. I leaned in to read what was written now.

 

CHAPTER ONE: PAIN

 

As soon as I read it, the skin of my hands began to twist, as if someone was pinching me. A gasp escaped my mouth as I held my hand tightly, only to be petrified by the realization that I couldn’t stop the pinch. The space between my fingers was being filled with blood as I felt someone digging their nails, or perhaps knives, in the skin there. Tears flowed out of my eyes and the pain was so extreme, so unbearable that I couldn’t even cry. Now, it was my face, being pawed mercilessly again and again, developing scratches all over it. Once, it had been something girls could die for, now, it seemed just the look of this scarred, clawed face, could make them wish they’d died earlier. Something tore the skin of the face and it burned like hell. I could feel my flesh hanging from my skin, a piece of it fell on the floor, making a soft sound which reminded me of the meat shop I went to when only chicken or pork could satisfy my appetite.

I kept sobbing, but not a single sound was made. I was dragged towards the book by pulling my skin as if drawing by a hook, and my eyes fell on the new page.

 

CHAPTER TWO: CRIES

 

The neck was clawed now.

‘Aaaaaaarrrggggggghhhhh!!!’ Finally a cry.

The sharp, pointy nails, like a shark’s teeth, pierced into my skin for a moment, making way for a stream of blood to come out and make the floor red. I kept my hands on my neck to stop the bleeding, but pressing it only exerted more blood out on the floor. Just like they water the plants, I was blood-ing the floor.

My neck kept showering the blood. My t shirt had gone red, and my feet were drenched now. Suddenly, my face was scarred by a powerful blow right at my nose.

‘Ahhhhhhh! Fuck!’

Another cry, followed by my helpless wailings. I couldn’t bear it any longer. Perhaps coming down here in the lap of the paranormal could only be the idea of some fucktard. The best would be to escape the basement as soon as possible. The demon won’t go beyond this sick underground trash bin.

I gathered myself and forced to run. First attempt: I slip over my own spilled blood, though there wasn’t much chance of slipping on the wooden floor. Considering it the paranormal act to hold me down here, I gathered courage and myself again. Second attempt: Success. I managed my way up the stairs and the creaking wooden planks of the stairs were no less creepy than the devil. I was now in my bedroom, the floor of which was now reddened with blood too. Hiding under the bed would make it more scary, as it reminded me of the creepy scene of movies where a child-like ghost would peep beneath the bed with a devilish smile on his face. Should run bloody far from here. It’s Kathy, and she’d only want me inside the home, just like she wanted me when she was alive, when every part of her urged and yelled for sex.

By the exit door, a pile of my books was scattered by a staggering me as I made my way outside to the fields, in the late night  when even crickets and stars seemed to have parted company with the darkness. The road was deserted as always. Until this day, what seemed to me as a boon – living by the countryside where hardly anyone lives nearby and no one roams around to disturb when the writer writes in his reclusive atmosphere which he loved – now seemed nothing else than a curse. A fatal curse.

The darkness was severe, as if a black cloak was used to cover the world. Only the shiny patches made on road due to the recent rain and a few flickering street lamps some good steps away gave an idea of the situation. On the either sides of the road, the park was…

A sudden thud blew my thoughts away, bringing me down on the road, the rough surface of which made my cheeks hurt, and another piece of flesh, which perhaps had been hanging all along, fell there. The book lay beside that flesh, with a new page, and a new chapter.

 

CHAPTER THREE: SHOCK

 

I heard a sniff behind me. The dog had arrived. As far as I could remember, it was the very first time I was seeing it. It was a typical stray dog, roaming around this part of Biston just like several other use to. It sniffed around my legs, then halted at the book. Its tongue hung out of its mouth, the pink tongue, and its eyes were fixated with the tiny piece of my flesh kept there on the road, right beside him, just half a paw away. The next moment, with the growls and moans the dogs make, it began enjoying the flesh, and my throat dried. I gulped in my own saliva in terror. The flesh and the dog’s mouth never lost contact. Its fangs were connected by the saliva. After finishing the meat, its desperate eyes looked at the other set of flesh.

It looked at my face.

Without wasting any moment, I ran towards the darkness, seeking and hoping for redemption. Behind me, I heard growls and barks of the ever-hungry dog, the lusty creature that had seen plenty of flesh hanging from my face like in some butcher shop.

I ran and ran, and felt the flesh touching my skin. The air passed through them and created a burning sensation. But I had nothing else on my mind but to run and save my precious life that made so much name and fame and was loved by billions of ignorant fans for whom I was some romantic like the male protagonist in those silly movies adapted from Nicholas Sparks’ novels.

The bark now, I realized, had stopped. I ran a few more steps to assure safety, then turned around when I reached a tree. The dog was nowhere. No bark, no lusty eyes desperately staring at my flesh, no growls, no more running. Such a relief!

The mist started to form around me, and by the looks of it, I judged I was in some forest. Hadn’t heard of one ever before, but perhaps I was meant to discover it. Maybe the no forest theory had been yet another myth of Biston. The town already had several myths, the one being the roses are extinct here.

I walked steadily in the dark forest, keeping my each and every step with absolute precaution. The mist made things more creepy, and the dried leaves beneath my shoes killed the silence. This wasn’t as creepy and soundless as the road by my home.

‘HELP!’ I hoped of a reply.

Help! Help! Hel…! He…!’ My voice echoed.

‘HELLLLP!!’

Hellllp! Hellp! Hell..!’ I heard my voice again in reply.

I stretched my hand to avoid bumping into trees. I could hardly breathe. The fact that I wasn’t actually blind had given me some breath, and that moment I wondered how blinds live their lives. So suffocating!

Just then, my right foot hit something hard and I tripped.

All of a sudden, the area where I fell illuminated and I could see trees and dead leaves all around me. To my right was the object of my fall. I looked at it, and kept looking at it, without any expression. There was a sudden rush of terror and perplexity in me, as if all the stars and the moon and all the things by nature had come to a halt, as if the very next moment would be doomsday, as if this was my end.

The object of my fall was no one else, it was me.

Shocked, I yelled, and yelled to my fullest. Never in my life I had imagined I had such an amazing strength to yell. More of it was to release all the pain I had suffered, only to replace it with this new pain.

My body was all tasted and eaten up by worms, the face was all ruined. The eyeballs were nowhere and the sockets of my eyes were stuffed with dead leaves. This me had worn a black jacket over a black t shirt and dark blue jeans on the lower part. The ruffled hair were all dusty and full of crowshit, and just like me, the body had its flesh coming out at several places, only they were eaten up quite interestingly. At some parts, bones were visible and worms were still crawling up there and feeding. My skin was all munched up.

‘Glad you recognized yourself.’

I startled and turned around to see Kathy sitting beside me on the ground. Her face was bloodshot red and her hair was messy and scary. Her eyes too were red and the scars on her face shone in the moonlight as she smiled a sinister smile.

‘Please forgive me! I’m sorry for hurting you back then.’

‘You thought you’d get away with this. You killed me, and thought it’s all over, didn’t you?’ Her voice was husky and terrifying, like a child crying in the middle of the night.

‘It was a mistake.’

‘No. Living in the illusion that you were alive was the mistake. You were always fed up with me, but killing me only made you more corrupt, more insane, more at the wrong. I knew that day you would kill me, so poisoning your food was the only way to succeed. I didn’t want you to ruin someone else’s life after me.’

‘What made you think I’ll remarry? Huh!’

‘You can do anything for sex, I know that. And I was glad to watch you die. You were restless, you felt hot, and I was sitting right on this branch of this very true, watching you suffocate, and smiling at your helplessness.’

‘You bloody…’

‘Somehow you didn’t realise you’ee actually dead. But now that you’ve realised, now that I’ve given you the pain that’d stay forever, I don’t care about Hell or Heaven, I have peace now.’

I kept looking at her with a thousand slangs and abuses in my mind. She looked at me, passed that sinister smile again, and disappeared somewhere in the mist.

I kept looking at the direction she disappeared, then I gathered myself. Only this time it didn’t take vigour at all as I realized how light I was. I floated myself in the air, and went straight inside my bedroom through the wall. Well, being ghost is a boon too, I guess.

I looked at my laptop. The unfinished novel I was complete and publish would always remain a dream. Such a satisfying chance it was to humiliate her. Even though I can complete it, I won’t be able to publish it.

 

The new family has arrived in the house just today. There’s a father and his wife, and their two kids- a guy, ten, and a girl, eight. They seem happy here. The guy plays around and reads my books and handwritten manuscripts. It’s so irritating. No sense of giving privacy! With their arrival, I had to make the stinky basement my solitary home.

It’s 3 am on the clock now. Everyone’s deep in the sleep, but I am not. Insomnia is still haunting me.

Time to read a book. Well, let me switch the table lamp on first!