This story happened in my childhood; I was thirteen years old and a student in class eight. At the time, I stayed in Asansol with my parents.

There was a haunted area near "Baruipara" (the area's local name) where it was rumoured – there was never any substance to it – that ghosts or perhaps some other paranormal figure roamed around a pond each new moon in the late afternoon and evening. It was a solitary place as it turned into a narrow path towards a Hindu cremation area. I came to know about the area when our maidservant's daughter died mysteriously, her body was filled with water and totally submerged in the pond. She was in her teenage years and a good swimmer, so that people started to talk that she hadn’t listened to her mother's advice and dared to cross the road passed beside the pond. An evil ghost had then snatched her body into the pond causing her sudden demise.

It was also rumoured that many years before someone had lost his control of his car and accidentally driven into the pond. Nobody was present at the time of his drowning apart from one or two who couldn’t swim; they said his right hand could be seen rising from the water as he tried to get help. Afterwards, if anybody fell into the pond, it was said he or she was seen drowning in the same manner, raising their right hand!

That particular summer vacation, my cousins and I decided to visit the place in order to discover the truth. Our eldest cousin was by far the bravest among us. It was the evening of the new moon, but there was still light in the sky and as we reached the pond side. We felt a force compelling us to get down into the muddy area on the bank of the pond, but we clung tightly to each other’s hand while one of us pronounced repeatedly in a religious tone "Hare Ram Hare Krishna", after which we felt the force loosen.

Later, we ran home after our frightening experience.



This story, which was translated into English, was edited by Gordon Lawrie.

It's so late at night. Something woke me. What was it? Was it you? Here, let me turn on the lamp.

My throat hurts, feels like it's been scratched. God, Frank, there's blood on my hand where I touched my throat! What could have happened?

Your eyes. They look so strange. So cold and distant. I've never seen you like this.

Where am I going? Why to the bathroom, of course, to wipe the blood off my neck. I must have scratched myself in my sleep.

You're shaking your head No. And what have you got in your hand under the covers? What is it? Frank, don't be like this. You're scaring me.

The cover dropped off your hand, and I see the knife. There is blood on the tip of the blade. Did you use the knife, Frank? Did you use the knife on me to cause me to bleed?

No, Frank. Get away from me, or I'll scream. Your eyes--so cold and dark. Please, please put down the knife. Let me help you, darling. We can work everything out.

No, Frank! Put the knife down. Not my eyes!

Oh, Frank, what's happening? Don't you love me anymore?

"Hold me," she said, her voice husky on the summer night air. "Please, please. Just hold me. That's all I ask."

Outside, the squall of alley cats, fighting and fussing at the bottom of a board fence, which separated their house from the next one over.

His hands were cool on her back. She made a soft sound. "Tight enough?" he asked.

The cats fell silent, but a dog barked. A very large dog, from the sound. "Arrrrah-arrrrah, ARRRRAH!"

"No," she murmured. "Tighter. So tight that you absorb me into yourself."

"You're something else. Do you know that?"

"Well, of course!" she said, snuggling closer.

And the cats at the bottom of the board fence began to fight and fuss again; but this time the very large dog did not bark.

He looked at the dark, purplish spots on the backs of his hands, and wondered. He looked in the mirror, saw his hair grown thinner and sparser on his head but profuse in his ears and nose and eyebrows. And the skin: Where had the soft, taut skin gone? He saw nothing but sagging flesh, and--yes--his arms and legs now looked like pipe stems, all the beautiful toned muscles gone the way of the firm, smooth skin.

"Well, what can you expect, old man," he said to himself, not noticing that his wife had appeared in the doorway. "After all, you're 85 years old . . . and now closer to 86."

He jumped, a bit startled and thrilled as his wife said in her gentle voice:

"You're not an 'old man', my strapping husband. And I still love you just the way you are."

He turned, took her in his arms--and suddenly felt young and alive and very much in love again.

Dolgrath was despondent. He left the theater in a tearing hurry, rambled about the dark streets, still hearing the jeers of the audience. They had literally laughed him off the stage! His career, none too good at best, was over.

He found himself at the walkway of the bridge across the river, which flowed by with oily darkness from left to right, bisecting the city. He stepped out onto the narrow passage, glancing now and then at the river, fifty or more feet below. Halfway across the bridge, he saw a shadowy figure standing at the railing, looking down at the river. As he came closer, he saw that it was a young girl.

While he watched in horror, she flung one leg over the railing, pushed her body upwards, and flung herself from the bridge. For a moment she seemed suspended in mid-air; a dark shadow of a bird-like thing, hovering. Then she fell with a scream and a flurry of threshing arms and legs, down and down to splash in the sluggish water below.

"What a great idea!" Dolgrath murmured to himself. "I should have thought of it myself. I've nothing to live for. So--why not?"

He rushed to the spot where the young girl had stood, threw his leg up and over the railing, just as she had done. Then he pushed himself up, as she had done. He tried to feel what she must have felt; and in truth, he was certain that he did. he would be a great actor after all. He would do it in the most lifelike manner imaginable. He would make it real.

He thrust his body forward, out into space. He imagined himself suspended there, just as the girl had seemed to hang suspended--and then he smiled broadly as he began to plummet down toward the oily waters of the river in what he was sure was the enactment of the most realistic death scene ever.

Business carried me into The City. I had a small shop in a strip mall in a nice, quiet suburb, but often I had to go in and restock, as was now the case.

I took my usual room in the Broddingtoom Hotel, at the edge of The City proper, and settled in. But there was nothing on TV. I had an internet hookup, but nothing there interested me. I became restless and decided to go for a walk.

The City hummed with frantic life, even at night. I strolled along, enjoying the crowds, even the exhaust fumes which seemed to pervade everything. Suddenly, however, a stranger hurried up to me, pushed me back into the mouth of a dark alley, pulled a revolver from his coat pocket and waved it in my face. His eyes were wild-looking, and he growled at me: "So. So! It's you, eh? I've finally found you!"

"You must be mistaken," I said. "I don't know you, sir. I've never seen you before."

"Hah! That's a laugh," he said, waving the revolver about even more erratically. "I suppose you would say that. Well, I know you. Yes, I know you very well!"

And with that, he turned the gun upon himself and fired. He staggered away, fell half-slouched against a brick wall, his coat front and shirt blossoming in a dark splotch; his life's blood flowing out.

Very quickly the police arrived, began investigating the crime scene, questioned me. Satisfied that I was an innocent victim, one of them showed me a piece of paper he had taken from the dead man's hand. Written in the man's blood was this message: "I KNOW YOU AND THE NEXT TIME I WILL GET YOU!"

"Do you have any idea what he meant by this?" the detective asked me.

"None at all," I replied. "As I told you before, he seemed to think he knew me, but I had never seen this man until tonight."

Upon returning home, I sold my shop and retired. I have never been back to The City.

I passed him in the train station, sitting at the end of a bench, elbow on the arm rest, chin cupped in his hand. He appeared, at first, to be asleep, so I paid him no mind, nor did anyone else.

But I got to thinking that there was something strange about the man, turned and went back to have another look.

He was sitting in the same position, and I noticed how still and stiff he looked. I went to him, put out my hand to touch his shoulder and ask him if anything were wrong. But as soon as I touched him, the man began to crumble, to fall apart in a jumble of shard-like pieces--as though someone had struck a statue a pulverizing blow. But I had barely touched him.

People were stopping to stare. Someone screamed. Several security guards appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

We all stood awestruck, staring at the empty bench where the man had been sitting. He was gone, dissolved away almost in the blink of an eye.

Then the guards began shooing people away, myself included, and everyone left, most still in a daze.

What else could be done? A man had mysteriously dissolved before our very eyes, and was gone. There was no explanation . . . other than to say it had been an Act of God.

He sat hunched forward in the chair, elbows on the desk, forearms angled up so that his fingertips were steepled. 

Gazing fixedly into the space between his palms and fingers, he imagined he saw a faint light, like dust glowing in a shaft of sunlight.

Somehow, he knew, he was creating something. Something strange and wonderful and marvelous. Something miraculous.

He was creating worlds within the cathedral like space of his cupped palms and steepled fingers.

Yes! There were worlds--suns and planets and moons--all whirling away in a dizzying dance in the confinement of his hands--and he had created it all!

How could this be? he wondered. How had he accomplished this? Without even thinking about it, he had created his own tiny universe, and held it in his hands.

But how to hold onto this? That was the question; that was the problem. What could he used to enclose that which he had created? Would it fit into a box? Could he lock it in his wall safe?

As he sat agonizing over his problem, his wife called suddenly from another part of the house.

"Dinner's ready, John. Come on and eat!"

Her words startled him so that he jerked his hands apart.

And his newly-created universe was ripped apart; exploded/imploded in a tiny poof!--and was gone as though it had never existed.

Oh, well, he thought. If I can do it once, I can do it again.

He got up and went to dinner. He would certainly try again later that evening. 

We stood looking down at the dead youth sprawled on the sidewalk, one leg thrown over into the gutter; no longer a human being but more like a broken doll-thing.

"Why?" said Charley, chewing on his lower lip. "Why, man, why?"

"Lotta reasons, I guess."

"Yeah, but name me one reason they should end up like this?"

"You know I can't, anymore than you can," I said. "We always get some of the reasons, later, you know that. Maybe not even the real ones, but what can you do?" I started making notes while we were waiting for the Crime Scene guys to get there.

When they showed up, minutes later, Charley pulled on my sleeve. "Let's go for coffee. I need some bad."

"Makes two of us," I said as we headed for our unmarked.

"Let me drive," Charley said. "I need something to concentrate on to get that sight out of my mind for a few minutes."

"Sure," I said, opening the passenger side door.

I knew exactly what he meant. We'd both seen it enough times. A young man, with most of his face blown away, who would never be going back home again.

He stopped before the heavy metal door and adjusted his uniform. He took great pride in his appearance and his job. He punched in the combination and stepped into the silent room.

The chamber was six by twelve feet in width and length. He seated himself behind his desk, which faced the back of a stolid, dark-colored wooden chair about six feet away. The chair faced a heavily padded wall, and sat in a depression all sides of which converged at a drain in the center and was made of stainless steel.

He glanced at the large clock on the wall. It was time. He pressed a button on the side of the desk and said, "Bring in the convicted."

A doorway on the wall to his right slid open. Four armed guards escorted a naked man into the room, seated him in the chair and secured his arms and lower legs to the chair. The guards saluted then filed back out of the room.

He took his weapon from a desk drawer to his left; then took a box of ammunition from the right hand drawer. He carefully loaded the revolver.

He cocked the revolver. There was a muffled click, but the condemned man did not move, did not flinch, did not cry out for mercy. Good! This one would truly die like a man!

With a slight smile of satisfaction, he raised the revolver and took careful aim at the back of the brave man's head.