P 1. Awakening

Janet wakes up one silent night,....into a new world........ of the dead, after some struggle ... and discovers her new address.........

1. Awakening

Cough... sneeeeeze.... wheeeeze... cough!

God, what’s happening to me......??

She’d woken up, breathing hard, strangely enough, not to the usual chirping of the birds and people bustling about on the street down, but to the din of an eerie stillness around. She had had a cool dreamless sleep, as always. But the scary silence and a chilly cold unsettled her nerves in the wee hours of the morning. Shaking off the sense of disquiet, she yawned stretching out her arms and legs.

“THUD!” What the..? She’d hit a wall. Hey, what wall? What’s gone wrong?? Why have the walls closed down on her? ...and that over her four poster bed in her lavish bed room! Her eyes flew open, but she failed to make out a thing in the pitch darkness.

Why was it so dark? Ok, the bed lamp. She groped about for the switch...... MISSING! Her hands once again hit against something hard. She tried jumping out of bed. “Ouch!” She’d hit the roof! Something was drastically wrong, but what? Some kind of practical joke? “If its John, he’s going to pay dearly for this”, she fumed within. Yet, intuition told her that things were seriously wrong, perhaps even sinister...

She lay there helpless, in the claustrophobic confines of the dark and dingy room, if it could be called that.

“MOM!........ JOHN! Anyone there?” She cried out, angry and helpless tears coursing down her cheeks, “.... Where am I? Panic and despair escalating, she tried another go at the walls around her, hitting and scratching about wildly. “HELP somebody!..HELLP... ANYONE THERE?” she yelled again, in a strangely muffled sound unfamiliar even to her. Another few minutes and the oxygen would deplete and she’d die of suffocation…. Oh God!

“God, help me please! I don’t want to die here in this.... this dark and dingy place, unknown to all my loved ones”. She sobbed, “I’m sure Mom will be looking for me and wondering why her morning oats is delayed. But where’s Mom? Why isn’t anyone bothered to come looking for me? Are they ignorant of my incarceration here? Perhaps they have gone to file a ‘missing’ complaint with the police. Some relief that! But, by the time they track me down in this hole, I’ll be choked to death.... Aaaargh!!!”

Hey, but hold on, she was breathing easy in this crammed up hole, and with suffocation at all! Surprise!! She laughed aloud, her sound flat. So this was just a dream. She pinched herself. “Did it hurt”?... confusion! Hmm… she’d only heard of instances of ‘sleep paralysis’, and here she was actually living the experience. Wait till she woke up normally and recounted the creepy incident to a rapt audience. She grinned in the dark. Shutting her eyes she resolved to go back to sleep much against her wishes, and wait........

Sleep eluded her. The dead silence, the darkness and the claustrophobia loomed overwhelmingly, and she tossed about uncomfortably. Giving up further attempts at sleeping, she resumed her struggle to get out of the cell that was, dream or not, scratching and hitting out at the wooden panelling around (strange, her house had brick walls!), with all her might. Surprisingly her hands didn’t hurt, nor did she feel exhausted with all the effort, though she lost all sense of time...

Gradually a feeling of lightness descended upon her, she gave up her struggle and stopped the hitting about. Was she about to faint? Her body began rocking and floating upwards... up....up... up.. ascending along, like going on a giant wheel. Wow did she like that. That was smooth sailing! THUD! She landed with a bump on a mound of sand and rubble, hitting her head against a wooden plank. Coughing with all the sand flying with the impact, she steadied herself.

Ouch, her head hurt. She clung on to the plank swaying about, her dizziness receding. An aroma of wild roses filled the air, mmm..... her favourite! She smiled, her cheeks stained with tears. In the darkness she caught glimpses of wild flowers and partially burnt incense sticks strewn around her on the mound. She dusted her feet. Only if she’d had on those sandals she’d worn to the beach! Her tender feet were dirty and hurting, and on its way to develop cracks too. Oh dear!

Little candles flickered around at random places……. Strange! Hey, she was wrong about the time of the day. It was night and some street lights shone in the distance. And she’d thought that she’d woken up to a bright new day. How wrong she’d been! But where was she, and where was everyone else, her mom, her son, brother, sister, and all others?

She steadied herself and leaning onto the wooden plank, peered into the letters inscribed on it....

Janet D’ Cunha

12 September 1965 - 30 April 2015

RIP

“Love you always… John, Mom, June and James”

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