The Other Side

Photo by Andres Jasso on Unsplash 

I was seated on a very uncomfortable couch in what appeared to be the waiting area of a clinic; oblivious to my purpose of visit. Across the room was a receptionist behind the counter, preoccupied with paperwork. I considered enquiring why was I here, but dismissed the thought to avoid looking stupid. I was absolutely positive, this was a dream.

I scanned the room to discover what clinic it was but there were no clues. The waiting area lacked any signboards or notices that are usually glued on clinic walls. Neither were there any advertisement posters, nor any certificates for doctor’s credentials. The waiting area was only decorated with indoor plants and incomprehensible paintings of modern art. The curtains on the windows made a futile attempt of keeping out the sun.

“Adrian Mukherjee,” the receptionist called my name. “They’ll see you now.” She gestured toward a door on the right wall.

‘Well, that was quick,’ I thought and walked through the door.

To my amazement, instead of a conventional medical room infrastructure with desk, chairs and a plinth; the door opened into what appeared to be a small living room with a big plasma screen television mounted on one wall and two reclining chairs facing the TV. A glass of water was placed on a coffee table between the recliners.

A tall guy in a white suit sat on one of the chairs tuning up the television.

“Adrian,” he turned to me with a smile when the door shut.

“I am Abraham,” he stood up and offered a handshake that I took involuntarily. “It’s so good to see you.”

“Likewise,” I replied, perplexed.

“You must be wondering what are you here for,” his smile still intact.

‘You think?’ I thought, but only smiled back obligatorily and nodded in affirmation.

He gestured me to sit in the other chair and I immediately followed. “I need you to listen to me very carefully, and know that everything is fine.” He said, his tone creeping me a little. I still nodded.

“Adrian Mukherjee, you have died.” He finally said; his smile still on.

“I, what?” I almost yelled, controlling my emotions to avoid drama. I found it hysterically disturbing.

I realized my face was giving incorrect signals as he said, “You’re smiling.”

“Of course, I’m smiling. I am even more confident now that I am asleep and this is a dream. I’ve had nightmares before, where I’m about to...”

He splashed the freezing cold water from the glass on my face interrupting my sentence.

“Those nightmares were different; you’d wake up before you’d die.” He continued, putting on his smile again. “This is not the same. You’re already dead.”

With the water gimmick startling me, I should have woken up. That was convincing.

“You had an accident on your way to work.” Abraham clarified.

“So? What is this? The afterlife?” I stood up, “Is this heaven? Or am I in hell?”

“Everything is fine, Adrian.” Abraham assured. His tone surprisingly calmed me down.

“Please be seated.” He passed me some paper napkins and I tried to pat myself dry. “We don’t call this any of those names.”

“And… What about my family? Do they know? Are they okay?”

“The paramedics have informed them and they are arranging for your funeral. They’re grieving, but they’ll be fine,” he assured. “Everybody goes through this.”

“So, what am I supposed to do here?” I asked.

“This television will play some memories from your life. You’ll spend the rest of eternity in this room watching how you’ve lived most of your life.”

That brought me some relief. It’d be good to see my family & friends. “You could use this remote to rewind or fast forward.” He handed me the remote.

“Can I meet my people again?” I wondered. “Or maybe I have to wait until they die too?”

“I’m sorry, but it’s just you and your memories for eternity,” Abraham smiled and stood up to exit the room. “You can only see them in your memories on this television.”

“And if you ever need to talk to us, you can see the receptionist outside. We are all here for eternity too.” Abraham closed the door after him, and the television turned on by itself.

“Welcome Adrian” the television displayed in bold letters in an intricate font. I reclined in the chair, geared up to relive my memories; excited to see my friends & family.

To my astonishment, the television only played parts where I was either at my office workstation or commuting to work. I tried fast forwarding, but it was always just me, either on the go or sitting in my cubicle.

On my way, I was listening to tracks from my favorite artists. I always desired to attend their concerts, learn to play guitar and host a show of my own.  At times, I read books or watched movies & series when I rode public transit, hoping to travel to the exotic locations in their stories.

At work, I was always receiving requirements from my superiors that I reluctantly fulfilled. There were times when I was rewarded. With every appreciation, I made plans to celebrate my accolades with family & friends. There were phone calls to my near & dear ones; at times making a plan, at times bailing on them. However there was no presence of my family or friends in the video.

The video restarted from the welcome message after it ended my last working day and played in loop.

After a couple of repetitions, I stepped out to talk to the receptionist.

“I think there has been an error. My memories video only shows me either working in my office chair or commuting to work.” I complained.

“Well, that’s not an error,” she defended. “It only shows you how you spent most of your life.”

“Well, but then there’s so much I should have done more often.” I argued. “The artists I listened to on my commute, I should have attended their concerts. The vacations my wife and kids nagged me for, I should have taken them. The friend’s reunions I kept procrastinating...”

“Sorry Adrian,” the receptionist interrupted me, “but you had forty years to realize that. I apologize, but nothing can be done about it now.”

A Walk to Remember

Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash

Soon after most of the party had left, Vikram and I decided it was our turn to take off as well. Over the past few hours, we’d danced to peppy party numbers, had some drinks and pretentiously scanned the place for eligible singles for self and one another. I realized I’d drunk more than I could handle when Vikram got protective of me while we grooved on the dance floor. He’d gestured it was time to leave.

“Emily,” he said, patting my shoulder when we reached the exit gate. “Wait here. I’ll get the car from parking.” I wanted to walk with him to the car, but the stilettos that I donned merrily throughout the party were now killing my feet. Also, it would be embarrassing to lose balance and trip in the parking lot. I didn’t want for Vikram to remember me as that drunken girl after tonight.

As he walked away, I tried to maintain my balance, resting my hands over the railing at the exit door. Maybe Vikram was right; perhaps the few drinks I’d had tonight were indeed too many. Vikram vanished into the parking lot in the bright car lights and I stood at the exit as people walked in and out of the venue, more out than in.

The world around you gets amusing when Tequila and vodka are fighting inside you to influence your thoughts. On one side there were boys laughing, besieging another tiny boy, probably bullying. There were few couples, exiting the party; some hand-in-hand, some lip-to-lip. Or maybe not; perhaps they were hand-in-hand too; probably the alcohol made me see them kiss. It was also likely that the group of big boys was singing “happy birthday” to the little guy in the middle and the tiny boy had a straight face out of embarrassment. It was hard to cognize reality.

I caught sight of a human figure run toward me from the parking lot. The bright lights emitting from cars exiting the venue cast shadow of the running man. It took my alcohol infused eyes a few seconds to adjust. When he was close enough, I realized it was Vikram, running breathless; probably he was tipsy too. When he was close enough, I realized he was laughing hysterically. He was trying to suppress his laughter to talk, but ended up palpitating.

“We rode the streetcar to the party, dumbo,” He finally found words, still giggling; and we burst out into erratic laughter. “You recommended taking public transit, remember?” He spoke, in a futile attempt of suppressing his laughter.

“Of course,” I responded, “we don’t have a good reputation in partying sober or driving drunk. We cannot be knocking garbage bins off the street throughout our way again.”

Thus, we rode the streetcar to & fro the party. The ride home was bumpy, but fortunately we’d both drank enough water to keep the alcohol down. We made every attempt possible to stay awake in the streetcar; chatting with each other, and gawking at strangers with ridiculously judgmental comments; but I hadn’t realized when had my head rested on Vikram’s shoulder and nodded off.

Vikram woke me up when it was our stop to get off. The streetcar dropped us at the entrance of our residential lane, just off Vikram’s driveway.

The Evil

Photo by Mikhail Elfimov on Unsplash

It was yet another night in the purgatory of winter, each night more frigid and monotonous than the night before. It was already past 8 PM; one more night when I was spending unnecessarily long & fruitless hours in office. I reside in the condo by myself, across the street from work; so getting home is neither challenging nor rewarding. These late hours in office give me a touch of social life, a pleasant smile with the janitor and a good-night-bye with the night-duty office guard.

As I was drafting one of my several last replies for the night, I noticed an unopened envelope in the notifications tray beside the clock in computer. It was weird I hadn’t noticed a popup in Outlook for a new email. I navigated to my inbox to identify what I had missed. There was 1 unopened email and the subject line & sender’s name grabbed my attention.

“The Evil,” both fields said. The message body only said, ‘The Evil is coming,’ in bold letters.

I was certain; it was either a prank or a scam. However, in the soundless and deserted office, it was spooky enough to raise the hair on back of my neck with fright.

I decided it was best to leave from work sooner than later. I walked to the south end of office building and twisted the shaft on window blinds to check for signs of snow. As slats on the blinds tilted, I scanned out through the slits between them; and the scene I saw in the building across the street startled me.

All the lights in my condo unit were lit. I vividly remember turning them off when I left for work in the morning. The blinds on windows in my condo were still down as I’d left them; hence it was not possible to comprehend if somebody had broken in. I made a call to the security desk of my condo, but there were no visitors on record.

The security guards were already at my door as I rushed to my condo unit from office. We waited at the door, perplexed whether to open the door. We didn’t know if the robbers were still inside and whether they had any ammunition. Also, the condo unit was now an active crime scene, as per the many crime thriller series I binged.

After waiting for a while, the security guard called the cops and they instructed us stay out until their arrival.

I was instructed to insert the key in latch, and unlock the door after the cops arrived. The cops pushed the door open and announced for the suspect to step out with hands where they can be seen.

The condo was still brightly lit, all lamps on. It was eerily silent and lifeless. However, it was evident that someone had broken-in and rummaged my residence. The doors on kitchen cabinets and refrigerator were open, and the groceries were dumped over the kitchen tiles. The dishes & kitchen towels were tossed around, and the cutlery was nowhere to be seen.

The living room was a mess as well. The cushions that usually decorate my couch were thrown on floor. The dining chairs in the den were prostrate on ground and the vase from dining table shattered. The rug under them was drenched from the water in the vase. The flowers were mercilessly torn and petals flung all over.

The television set in the living room was on, it only displayed a blue screen. The words “The Evil is coming!” were engraved in dark color using what appeared to be red lipstick, with a large smiley drawn beside it.

The drawers in my television stand were pulled out; and the robber had rummaged through my stuff in them. All my photo albums from the bottom shelf were lying on coffee table, and the creepiest thing was that the heads from all my photos were cut off.

As we entered the bedroom, my suspicion of the robber being a psychopath confirmed. All my heads cut from the photo albums hung from my bedroom ceiling. I am not the person who makes their bed after getting up; however, it seemed even shabbier than I left.

I pulled the sheets and realized that the cutlery missing from my kitchen was found on my bed. Only, the spoons and forks were thrown everywhere and the chopping knives stuck vertically in the mattress; it was evident that someone had mercilessly stabbed, without a human body in bed.

“Do you share this place with anyone? Does anybody else also have the keys to this unit?” The cop inquired.

“I live by myself. Only I & the management office have the keys.” I answered. The security guard displayed the set of keys from building management.

“Do you have any suspects? Anybody that may have the intentions to harm you?” He asked.

“None that I can think of,” I answered almost immediately. I’ve never been close enough with anyone to give them the intentions to hurt me.

“Although I did have an episode earlier.” I told them about the email from The Evil.

“We wouldn’t recommend you to stay here alone for safety reasons tonight.” He continued, “Do you have anywhere else you could spend the night? Or anyone to keep you company?”

I gave that question a pretentious thought, although I most definitely knew the answer to it. I lived alone in this city; all the inanimate objects in this condo unit were my only companions. The only people I knew were my colleagues, and I was certainly nowhere close to them to ask for company or shelter.

“No,” I nodded.

“Alright,” he turned to the security guard, “We understand your building has CCTV cameras? I need you to monitor the feeds from this unit tonight.”

“Yes sir,” The security guard almost announced his agreement.

“Also, I will need the footage from today for this unit.” The cop talked to security guard as they walked to the door. “You should spend the night elsewhere,” he said to me. “May be a hotel, if you don’t have any friends that would help.” The end of that sentence hurt.

I nodded in agreement. “Stay safe and call us if you notice anything unusual.” The cop walked out the door with security guard.

I walked out with them, “I’ll spend the night at the Inn near Union Station.” I informed them and walked out after.