The Haunting Visions

“I can’t get the image out of my head” she said.

“But it has been a long time” he told her.

“It just doesn’t go. I doubt if it ever will” she murmered.

“The images keep coming back because you never wanted to feel better. You don’t want to heal. I can’t understand why it is so” he wondered.

“You haven’t seen what I have seen. You don’t even know for sure what I saw” she added.

“What was it then? Enlighten me, will you?” he asked.

“It was the accident. It had that truck losing control and going into a coffee shop on the side of the road” she said.

“Yes, I know about, and everyone else does too. All the people there have seen that, but none of them are sitting like this, terrified and not sure what to do next for such a long time. They have moved on, but you haven’t. I wonder why”.

“No, it is not just about the truck going into that coffee shop. It is about a lot more” she said.

“I don’t understand. Isn’t it about that truck going into that coffee shop and killing five people?” he wondered.

“Yes, for everyone, it was. But, not for me. I have seen what happened before that, but talking about it to a few people had me branded crazy”.

“You talked about this to others, but not to me? You should let me know. What did you see out there that has made you lose hope in others?” he asked.

“Five of us friends were returning to the city after the special centenary programs at our college. We were behind that Ashok Leyland truck in our black Chevrolet Beat. We had been looking to overtake it, but as the road was not wide enough and the traffic was very high, we couldn’t, and my friend had stopped trying”.

“You mean the truck that went right into that coffee shop?” he asked.

“Yes, the truck which had a huge load of mahagony wood. It was right in front of us. I was sitting on the left side of the driver, and I saw it. I told them, but they never saw anything” she said in one breath.

“What did you see?”

“The person in black sitting on the top of the wood pieces”.

“There was a person there too? But there were only two in that truck. The driver and the cleaner” he said.

“I am not talking about a regular person here. The man here was so different. He was wearing a black cape and a hood. It was all dark inside that cape, and that was surprising because the day was hot and the sun was shining bright. He had a dog sitting beside him. My information on dogs is very less, but I am sure that I hadn’t seen something like that before. Its teeth spread out of its mouth like one of those pre-historic creatures made of bone usually seen in a museum, and its ears and tail stood high like horns, and its eyes were bright red. It had patches of red all over its body and they shined. When I looked at it, the nails came out of its legs like from Wolverine’s hands” she looked around as she completed the description.

“I am not really sure what you are talking about” he said.

“I knew you would say that. Well, just before the truck turned right into the shop, he just stood up, removed that hood and showed his skeleton face to me. His jaws widened as he seemed to smile, and then he put his fingers on his lips telling me not to talk as the dog also stood straight up with his patches of red burning as if they had caught fire. The truck quickly made a right turn and went right through into that shop. The pieces of wood were all on the road blocking our way, and the truck was completely inside that shop” she finished and sat on the chair.

“It is a creepy story, but I wish that you hadn’t told me that. You need to get rid of these hallucinations. Otherwise, it won’t help your future” he said while leaving.

“I don’t understand why you are also talking like this. Those visions still haunt me and that image never gets out of my head. I try to sleep at night and there is that person standing with his dog and telling me not to talk. Please understand. You don’t want to believe? All right! Tell everyone that I am crazy” she yelled at him, but he had already reached the car.

As he started the car, she noticed a hooded face waving at her from its back seat, and once again the person revealed his skeleton face to her and placed the finger on his lips. She screamed for her friend to come back, but he wouldn’t stop the car. He knew that she would tell her another story which wouldn’t make sense to his rational mind. Meanwhile, a petroleum tanker has a brake failure at the very next turn as his mobile rings in the car.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

***The images used in this blog post were taken by me on my Sony Cybershot Camera.

TeNy