Tales from the Neverbeens

It was dawn or dusk, I have no idea. I had woken up with a start and found that it was dark. I could not even see the clock. It was so hot, I was sweating. And itching all over. I had allergies. All kinds of them! When it was windy I would get it. When it was dry, I would get it. When I was cold, I would get it, and even when I was hot, I would get it! But this time it was intense. I was sweating and itchy all over! I realized I should check under my sheets for a possible caterpillar. It was too intense to be an ordinary allergy attack. I switched on the lights and checked. No caterpillar, no centipedes, or any insects for that matter. But it was itching still. I checked again. Nothing. And I checked again. This time I saw it. The small hair that had grown out of my skin. On my thigh. It was not the hair every boy grows. It was an straight, tough, and resembling that of a caterpillar! And it was when I checked properly I found that it was all over. I had the hair all over me.. the h...

I have always avoided this window. I always sleep on the other side of the room. The reason is rather based on some instincts that are much inclined to the supernatural and may seem trivial and in fact silly to anyone who has not been near it. It has always remained closed, and is so dirty that the other side that has the view of the hillside, is barely visible. But I have grown an acceptance of the presence of it, and it bothers me much less now so long as I keep my distance. Until now. I had been seeing something moving beyond the window that is distracting me every now and then. Every night, when I switch off the light inside, the outside becomes dark enough to see. And through that window I can see the head of a man moving, peeping in, sometimes disappearing only to reappear in a few minutes. I don't know the face. And its appearance should not have been disturbing to me. Had it not been the fourth floor, and no balcony or any kind of place where a man could stand so that his...

I had just arrived from the movie theatre. It's past midnight, but as my friend would say, midnight is the best time to watch a horror movie. It was a horror movie of sorts, but the scenes of blood and violence grossed me out instead. I had my eyes shut for most of the time. Talking about my friend, I just reached home to find him ping me on my messenger. He said he misses me. Well, I miss him too. It's nice how he drops in a random message out of nowhere every now and then. Shows me that he means it. We had no more conversation. It was time I slept. I've to go to work early tomorrow. All of a sudden, I woke up with a start. Someone was peeping at me from the window. But nobody could climb onto the balcony from the outside. It is the 4th floor! I approached the window, hiding my growing fear. It looked like neo, my friend I had talked to. But there was something wrong about him. He didn't look, well, human! Its feet were wide and hairy. It was clutching onto the rai...

3 am once again. This same voice has been nagging me for the last couple of weeks. That is why I have refrained from writing on this blog all this time. I was a bit creeped out. But it's happening again tonight, and I guess it is time I speak about it. It's a voice. It comes every night a short while after 3 am. And before it does, it wipes out all other sounds. The clock doesn't strike 3. It doesn't event tick. The mischievous mouse underneath the bed stops its frantic searches. The insects too seem to be silenced. And then I hear the voice, amidst the reverbrating silence. I always wake up a few minutes before the time. Sometimes, like today, I lie sleepless with a myriad thoughts. But the voice takes me by surprise everytime, even when I know that it is going to come. It's a little girl's voice. "Is anyone here?" it says, "I've lost my body somewhere. Can you help me find it?" I wonder if it's the mute girl who always looks lo...

I tried to shoo the fly off. But it was persistent. In fact for the last few hours these flies have been growing in multiples around the town. These bees, they are everywhere. And they look angry! It is unnatural, the way the bees are behaving. Such big numbers, and all over the place. They don't seem too eager to bite, but they are nagging everyone around. Even the sky's filled with them all the time making it seem cloudy and dark. Things are getting out of hand. I decided to take a look at where they were coming from. Following the growing density of the buzzing, I walked upto an old grey wooden house - the house of the bee keeper. People had already gathered there, but there were too many bees to enter the house. But there was this foul smell that hit me. "It's the bee keeper, he's dead," a man said from behind me, "He must have been dead for days." "But I had seen him a couple of days ago. He was walking and healthy then..." another...

It must be an asthma attack, I guessed. The air felt heavy, and it was growing more difficult to breathe. My lungs were going to burst if the doctor did not arrive on time, but there was no sign of him. Even swallowing was difficult now. My vision was getting blurry and the room was getting darker. Mother arrived with a man with a suitcase. The doctor, finally, I thought! The man came nearer, observed my eyes and put his hand on my chest. It felt as if the lungs were reaching out to him for help; they were pushing and crawling. Then the man reached into his coat and took out a cross. He held the cross in front of me. I felt burning inside me, and then I passed out. The next time I opened my eyes, I found the man looking at me. Now that I could see him properly, he was no doctor. He was a priest. Mother was all in tears on the other side of the bed. "What's going on?" I asked. "You're sick son, very sick," said the man. "What...

A lonely tree stood in the middle of the field, a blanket of mist behind it. It stood twisted, silhouetted against the blanket of cloud behind. This tree has a history. It never broke. Kamini had always looked up at the tree, wondering how the tree had got twisted. As if an invisible hand turned it several times by its top and held it there eternally. Her life had got twisted in the same way, but she hoped life wasn't as adamant as the tree. She had both feared and hated the tree, until she had her first child. Little Sohail seemed to like to play around the tree quite a lot. There was nothing else to play with around anyways. The little boy grew up and had began his education, but he was always attached to the tree. The father had made a swing for him on the tree, and Sohail would spend most of his time swinging. But one day the branch that had bent down by the weight of the boy suddenly pulled up, and the boy, caught among the ropes, was pulled up too. The rope coiled around h...