Oblivion Perkin

A Story by Moushami Sha

This story is about a child named Perkin and his friend Jaron.

Those kids ran around this way and that, like leaves on a blustery day. I was sitting at the corner of the room, gazing at them, wanting all of them to leave soon. My problem was that I found them winsome. But they were only responsible to swell my problem. My job was to scare the life out of them, but none of them got a single drop of cold sweat while seeing me! As I was an old-aged ghost, they were supposed to be scared from me, but they didn’t find me scary as they didn’t even know what does a ghost mean. One of them was Perkin, a good friend of mine. He was a very small child and being very oblivious, he didn’t care about anything. Usually, he called me Jaron, which was the name of mine given by my parents. He always said that my mind was like an encyclopedia, and said that no one could ever guess what I was thinking all the time. The first time when I met him, he startled me. I was trying my best to scare him, but unfortunately it was entertaining him. The cute smile that appeared on his face forced me to stop the nuisance. From then onwards, I lived in his house like a friend of him. I never told him why I came to his house. We ate together, played together and spent good time together all day long. But perhaps my life itself didn’t want to accept our friendship. His parents were often busy with their jobs. One day due to their work, they had to go to another city for few days, where they could not take their child with them. That’s why they hired a nanny for Perkin. I didn’t hate nannies but this Anna, was maybe not the one they had chosen. Finally, she came to remind me my motive of being there. I can only compare her to such a witch who once gave me a curse to live like a wraith until I kill her targeted people to get my life back. That means, I didn’t die because of a real death but because of the curse given by her. She sent me to this house to kill this family, which was unthinkable for me. When she was a very small child, she wasn’t like this. She loved everyone. But she got murdered by her very close one and she turned into a witch. And this witch’s point of view was, that love was finished from this world, and it was now necessary to kill everyone’s loved ones to make them realise what love is. And she was very stubborn with her thinking. I tried hard to convince Perkin by saying that she was dangerous and villainous lady but he did not want to understand. By the way, he was not wrong either with his point, he said that he cannot tell his parents that he does not want to live with that lady. Anna entered the house with mirthless smile on her face. Perkin said that he felt her handshake was like holding a cold wet fish. It was his ineffable kindness for everyone that no one could live without liking him. But as she was already dead, it doesn’t really mattered to her. It influenced me because I was in a middle state. Whenever Perkin was far somewhere from me, she came to me and tried to threaten me that she would never take the curse back if I would not kill him. I didn’t know why but she never tried to intimidate Perkin. One day at midnight, when she made Perkin sleep soundly, she came to me in a rage. Genuinely, whenever she came closer to me, I felt like a mosquito buzzing in my ears. “Let’s discuss about your future planning Jaron… I will teach you how to make friends in this community,” said Anna. While she was at her worst, we saw Perkin slowly walking towards us. He wasn’t affrighted at all, which made us discover that he was a somnambulist. But his sleepwalk didn’t last for long. Soon, he woke up and said, “Along with him, can you also teach me how to make friends too… after all I don't have much friends either!” She grinned and whispered into his ears, “I am not talking about real friends son, and don’t worry, you’ll get enough friends in future. You are not like Jaron who needs to be guided every moment!” I stepped out of the mirror to stop her. Her expression told me that she was about to kill him. “We’ll include you in our conversation Perkin, come here,” I unwantedly invited him in between. “So you want to play it this way, huh? Fine, let’s begin the game Jaron…,” Anna did her mischievous laugh. Suddenly Perkin’s mellifluous voice came, “Jaron once told me that you are bad nanny. Why so?” Anna’s vile smirk came again, “Because I wanna kill you!” Perkin made a confused face, “But I don’t know how someone kills somebody, I only know how to save someone’s life.” I was watching them quietly talking, and saw Anna making weird face on this sentence of Perkin. “How do you think that such a small thing like you can save someone’s life?” asked Anna. Perkin politely answered, “First of all, I am not a thing. I am a living human who can share love with everyone. And from my point of view, by just sharing love, we can save someone’s life…” Anna was undoubtedly stunned by this answer. She asked him to go back to his room. She sat on the nearby chair and started thinking. I didn’t interrupt as I thought, at that time, a little silence was necessary. After a short time, she walked away from there and vanished! I went asleep. Next day, I woke up somewhere else. It wasn’t Perkin’s home. It seemed like my old home. I was feeling alive. I was able to feel my body parts. Instead of coming inside the mirror, I was able to see my reflection there. I again became normal living man! I never saw Perkin again from that day, and also that Anna. But I understood one thing, that being stubborn with her thinking made it difficult for Anna to realise her mistake. But finally she conceded with Perkin’s point of view! And I am still thankful to Perkin who saved my life.