The clock seemed a blur from the bed as it was dark and I had kept my glasses away before sleeping. The positions of the clock arms suggested it was thirty minutes past one at night. I normally slept by twelve. But that day too many things were coming to my mind as result of leaving an adventure story at a point of thrill.
Feeling irritated, I got up and went to the
terrace to walk a little. It was one of the things my excessively curious mind
wanted to do. It was a full moon night and there was not a single house in the
neighbourhood whose lights had not been switched off. The cold and dark street
made a beautiful contrast to the moonlit sky with a few twinkling stars.
It might have been two o’clock when I had
walked at least six or seven rounds. I had not seen an animal awake when I was
enjoying my stroll. I had overlooked something at about that time. It was
something which I had not noticed in the last thirty minutes. On looking back I
saw something shaking behind the big neem tree of Mr. Dey’s house. To be more
appropriate, it was swinging.I paused for sometime.This was a scene which I had
not expected.I could see two legs swinging in the middle of the cold night air.
On looking a little upwards I could see a man sitting on the sunshade of a window
and staring at the gleaming streetlight of the neighbourhood. I tried to
recognize him but I couldn’t. That man was sitting on the sunshade of the
second floor and swinging his legs! How could I possibly relate him with anyone
though I could not see his face properly. How could a man possibly sit there
and stare at a streetlight out of everything else? Suddenly he turned towards
me. He was wearing a dirty piece of shirt with patches on it. Maybe he was
mentally unstable. Then he surprised me. Just as he was staring at me he stood
up and jumped effortlessly from the sunshade towards the neem tree which was
almost four metres away from the window. Then he got down and picked up a sack
from the base of the tree. Then he came to the street with the sack. Evidently
the sack contained something heavy as the man walked uneasily.
He kept the heavy bag against the wall of
our neighbour’s house and sat beside it. I tried to resume my walk when I heard
a chuckle. The man was laughing! I got back at the edge of the terrace. He was
murmuring something. It was a date – “19th September”, he laughed,
“…1998”. Was he really mad?! He spoke clearly in bengali, “I will not tell
anyone”, his laugh got more wicked, “ It was coming fast…LIGHT..BIG
LIGHT”. A cold wind blew. I was freezing
with fear. Had he killed someone? He suddenly turned his head, stared dead
through me and grunted and laughed wickedly with a shrill and frightening
sound. I could see his face… it was so full of expression. He could not be mad.
He got up, picked up the sack and ran fast, bent at the end and I could hear
nothing but a strange and loud laugh.
After all this I went back to my bed with
fear. The best thing to do at that time was to fall fast asleep. It was morning
soon. The first thing I asked my parents was, “Did you hear someone laugh
yesterday night?”; the answer was “No”. A lot of questions were coming to my
mind…was he mad? Was he a killer? Was he a ghost? Even then what was he
carrying? What did “BIG LIGHT” mean?
Soumyadip Chatterjee is a student of Funlish, Class IX
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