The Night something crawled under my bed ......

It was late ..very late during the night . 0230 am . I was in the computer room typing some paper I was working on . Shumana and the children were sleepin in the other room . I just stretched out my arms as I could feel this stinging pain in my spine . Bloody cervical !!!! I have always had this strange feeling everytime I stretched out my hands . I feel that I would end up touching something , something that is not present in our dimension of existence . Yes I have been mortally afraid of Ghosts , having had some paranormal experiences myself in my childhood and later .

It was a hot summer night and everytime I used to perspire , the flowing sweat on the back of my neck would give me a feeling of someone scratching my spine with a gnarled fingernail . Creepy!!!! . But that is one of the downsides of being overtly creative and having a fertile imagination . I combed back my hair with my fingers and bowed down my head to close my eyes for some time . My eyes were burning by then. Terribly irritable .I decided to shut my eyes for sometime and could hear various sounds from different houses of my apartments. Someone was watching Sex and the City; distant sounds of a moaning Samantha. And someone not watching TV was also moaning somewhere . God bless them . Palak's newly born infant sister was crying too . Her mother irritably trying to put her to sleep and shouting , " Kha le Mujhe , Sotee kyon nahin , tu to mujhe maar dalegee " . Palak is incidentally Mili's best friend . And then the apartment's security man . Trying to scare away the thieves around with his whistle. A car had just got stolen a month ago .Yeah, so much for security . The cocktail of all these sounds seeping in my ears . I wanted the pain in my back to just ooze away . But then , I felt something .

I thought something just touched the back of my neck . It was very subtle , like someone touching the hair on my neck with a feather . It send a chill down my spine . I thought that my reaction would be probably jumping out of my chair and giving a loud shriek , but nothing like that happened . Instead I was so petrified that I stood frozen for some time , trying to actually figure out if it was the figament of my imagination or something had really touched me .I could feel that my feet were going numb and I was finding it hard to open my eyes . I wanted to call out for Shumana , but was just choked at the moment . And then I heard it .... heard something....something crawling...It was under my chair . My feet grew number and I was just frozen . I could hear the thing now . It was crawling . and moved towards the bed in the room . I lifted my head and opened my eyes . The light in the room just hit my eyes like a collage of colours smudged , crushed in someones fist and thrown on my face . For a moment , I thought that I could not hear anything , just the buzzing sound . I had that sensation when my Hindi teacher had once slapped me ...Whack ... right on my ear ...I still remember when her fingernail had scratched my ear lobe and I had bled till the collar of my shirt turned crimson ....Bitch!!!!

Anyways ...The crawling did not stop . With great difficulty ,I turned around and looked at my bed and the glimpse of what I saw , took away a few minutes from my life ....JESUS !!!!!!What the hell did I see!!!!! Did I just see something huge crawl away under my bed ...what was it ???? As a natural reaction, I just pulled my legs up the chair . I was shaking by then . My spine was shivering and my stomach was doing hullahoops. What should I do , I thought !! Should I walk towards my bed , bend down and check whats under my bed . I have to be rational I thought for a moment . There can be no ghosts. There are no ghosts , I thought...but what if there are . What would that f.... rationalist Idamurrukku know ? What if they come from a plan of existence that we are not aware of ? What if I am a unsuspecting victim ? What if they discover me in the morning , just like that grisly scene from the movie " The Ring " Eyes wide open , mouth wide open , nostrils bhi open !!!!! I mean , I cant be found dead like that, I thought . Imagine the news that the hindi channels , including mine would run the next day , with the close up of my petrified face . Nooo !!! No chance ... Sawaal hee nahin paida hota !!! All of a sudden I thought that one end of the bed just moved . My heart started pounding harder.The crawling got even violent . As if it was trying to come out of the bed . I was looking at the base of the bed . My eyes were getting narrower , trying hard to shut it . And then ......I felt something on the left part of my face . A gush of wind from the window in the bathroom ....And then it happened ...Someone just whispered .........ABHISARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.............

I shrieked and jumped out of my chair . I was lying on the ground and I was looking at the door of the bathroom next to my computer slightly open and a head peeping out of it ...It took me a few seconds to realise that Shumana had nearly given me a heart attack .It was Shumana peeping out of the door . Her eyes sleepy and her hair all over her face . Even a normally cute Shumana was looking scary .

" What happened to you sweety ,she asked. Why are you lying on the ground , as she came in and gave me her hand to lift me . By that time I had realised the gravity of the situation and my fear had changed into extreme irritation at Shumana.

" Why were you whispering like the witch of Kali Bari , for Gods sake,. Shumana? I asked .

"Because the children are sleeping in the other room and I did not want to wake them up ,!!!! ", she retorted back . I had forgotten about the crawling presence under the bed by then . Since I was on the ground , I felt something wet and sticky on my thigh . It was the orange juice that Babush had spilled last night and had asked me to clean , which I did not . I peeped under my bed and could not see anything . I looked back and saw Shumana still standing and looking at me as if trying to say , " sweety why are you embarrassing yourself? "

I got up and decided to call it a day , at nearly 0245am in the morning /night whatever you might want to call it . After the lights had been switched off, I could not keep my mind off the crawling presence under the bed. What was it , I thought . Whatever it was , I will be face to face with it soon maybe just in 24 hours ....

Watch out for this space .....