Flash Fiction

11-year-old boy : Mom, why do you always come up with a glass of milk every time I enter the house? There’s no need to be too concerned about me. 25-year-old boy:   Mom, you know the thing is that I want to enjoy my own life. I just want to be done with you in my life. I hate your pestering. Why do you always butt in? Mind your own business! 60–year-old man: Today, there’s nobody who can come up to me with a plate full of food every time I enter the house, with eyes looking for my problems instead of money every time I return from my office, with attentive ears every time I want to share something, with a feeling of gratitude every time I recover from any disease, with full of praise every time I win something and with a smile every time I hurt him/her.    Image courtesy- alamy.com

In the middle of a cremation ground in a small village of Uttar Pradesh stands a small hut of a ‘chandal’, a person who deals with the dead bodies of animals and the persons with no relatives. There is a black mark on the hut to inform the villagers about his residence. The chandal is considered a master occultist. The villagers visit him whenever they feel that the problems they are facing deal with the world of ghosts. Many a time, he has protected the village from evils and teething troubles without uttering a word. Nobody has ever seen him speak, but a few of the villagers say that they have seen him talking with the supernatural forces in night. His life has no external aims- only the obsession with his own thoughts is apparent. Everything is normal in his life, but one night an unexpectedly strange thing happens, something that is beyond normal experience or scientific explanation. The dark clouds in the sky are preventing the light of the unknown universe from reaching the eye...

It is eight o’clock in the night. Mr. Gupta is looking at the city of Mussoorie in the Himalayas from a height of 500 ft. above the city. He is standing on a road encircling a small mountain. No house or building is visible now, but the faint beams of light from residences, shops, and street lights are flickering through the thick blanket of fog and mist, signaling the presence of humans in this remote part of the world. The Night has robbed Mussoorie of its scenic beauty. The night brings equality in the world and the day-inequality. There is no beautiful, ugly, or average looking thing in the night. The day is responsible for all the differences and inequalities in the world. Mr. Gupta is a loner. He has no close friends or family besides his passion for ghosts. He stays at haunted places alone for a night and documents everything that he experiences there in a book. He has visited almost all the most haunted places in India but never encountered anything supernatural. Today, he is...