Friday, the 13th
– This day and date resonates with fear and ghastly stories of dreaded
creatures and unfortunate incidents. I have always wondered whether there is
any truth in those folklores, or is it just another story unfolding from the
ghory imagination of some seemingly strong people to obtain sadistic pleasure by
unnerving the weak or faint hearted…
This is the story
of..well..i don’t remember the date on the calendar. It was a misty morning and
Riya was getting late for work as usual. She gulped the entire glass of milk in
huge sips and strode outside to catch the honking cab waiting outside. Instead
of welcoming smiles, she was greeted by frowning stares of irritated people
cursing her for getting late. Amid the people angered by early morning
grogginess and a long grueling day ahead at office, Riya mumbled a few guilty
apologies and went to sit at her usual corner seat in the second last row of
the mini bus.
The sheath of the winter cold was so strong that it blurred
the vision of the passengers of the outside world when the little warmth
emanating from the heater collided with the frozen pane of the window. The
atmosphere inside was no different, she felt. The only warmth came from the
human-made machine, but not from any living soul. Riya looked around to see the
faces of other passengers. Everyone around seemed stoned fixtures of what
represents human existence on the planet and the only sign of life around was
the purring of the coarse engine. She felt as if she was travelling with a pack
of lifeless bodies. But she was wondering if those bodies were really lifeless?
There was absolute silence in the cab, but that silence was deafening. There
were tight lipped people, who had an entire world running within them. Everyone was so entangled in their own lives,
own turmoil, own hopes and dismays, that they were oblivious to the life
breathing outside them.
Engrossed in this chain of thought and repulsed by the
derision of the most ‘social’ form of existence in the universe, Riya drifted
off to sleep, only to be woken up by the screeching tires brought to a halt by
what she thought might be a passing animal. The previously lifeless bodies
lying around her also woke to movement with a startle to find out the reason
for this commotion. All that could be seen outside was a crown of people. But
amidst them, Riya could hear some strange sounds; sounds of the mumbling crowd,
a woman yelling for help and a child wailing. Everyone stepped out of the car,
to join the crowd of the onlookers. What was happening? Everyone was just
standing there..so where was that sound coming from? As she moved further ahead
jostling the crowd, all sounds drowned out and the only thing she could hear
was the silence of helplessness. The helplessness of a man being mercilessly beaten,
of a wife relentlessly begging for help and of the on lookers deaf to the voice of their conscience.
The man was being beaten, because he was crossing the road
on his cycle, and the royal black car hit him. He was being punished for
hurting the car that was still in the plush of its beauty. His memory of a
beautiful ride with his wife was being scarred for a small scratch on the
bumper of the royal ride of the ‘seemingly
strong’. Riya shouted and nudged her fellow lifeless cab mates to help, but all they did was either watch the
spectacle with cringed faces, as if they were watching a realism based movie in
the theatre, or look at their watches to rush to their corporate slavery. It
was then that she realized that those were lifeless and emotionless souls. She was appalled by the cold blooded people, whose
vision was blurred to the atrocities being committed, be it by themselves or
others. The warmth of human existence was not enough to break the ice within
them.
That night, Riya couldn’t sleep. The sight of that helpless,
almost dead man kept haunting her. She had seen the devil hidden in people.
That day is forever etched in her memory as her Friday, the 13th.
Be afraid of the demon
within you. It is the source of all fright for you and for others in the
non-mythical real world.
