Sunset at the Mississippi

The view was nothing like he saw before; the green lust pasture with duck and her ducklings quacking and searching for food, the majestic white swan praising its own reflection as it waddled through the water, the mean raven and the super busy swallows and the sparrows flying, tweeting and of course shitting over anything. The dark blue Mississippi at the end of the lawn with the non stop expansion of green forest beyond that which mingled with the reddish orange horizon of the evening sky. His gaze upon this beauty would sporadically be broken by the laughter of the teen girls swooshing past him in their bicycles. His gaze would slowly fade away with the memories of how he was like during his teens, 10 years before.

Memories, as they say are effervescent – most of them fly away, however, sometimes that stupid thing you did 95 years before comes to you every time you ride down the memory lane. The smile of that mongol face, the stupid love letter sent to her, and the beating that followed hours later after school once his brother found out. Oh memories!!!

She got married years before, where he was not invited and he’s pretty sure she’s even had kids already. His grotesque brother, who was the most hideous thing he’s ever seen was probably married too, likely with someone else’s sister. But her smile, that was something!!

His brain accessing the random memory folder within the grey matter was again interrupted by a giggling couple who captured a bench just few meters away from him. They were smooching like it was the end of the world, and they had to repopulate the whole darn Earth.

“geez fellas get a room or turn down the volume“ he thought for himself with a giggle exchanged with the elderly couple seated at next bench with hands hold tight, who might have done their part of populating the Earth. Sad that he had none of those experience through his life and it was in his to do list; get naughty at Public Park, by the side of the river, and try populating the Earth.
He had always portrayed himself as an avid thinker; who’d just think random stuff, like why dinosaurs disappeared and was moon landing a real thing and like why fish can’t fly etc.
He was born to think, but only about random stuffs. He was born to dream, only during days when he has shit load of works.
His inquisitive eyes scanned the whole perimeter again to get a subject matter to think. At the far corner of the park he saw a thin figure with long hair, standing few meters away from the lazy river. He got interested. What could be the reason for her to gaze that long into this river? He thought for himself.

He got his food for this thoughts. He turned away from his seat so that he could view the whole scene where she stood. She must be a lover of art, it was getting darker now, with sun already deep beneath the horizon, he could see her shawl wave to and fro in the air. People slowly retreated back to their homes. But he was again attracted to this very woman who was overlooking into the river, non stop for like an hour already. Park lights were already shining and moths and flies hovering around them. He’d occasionally slap his conspicuous knee, and with every slap he’d look at his palm for the dead mosquitoes.

Now everyone else was gone. He was there alone, watching a girl few hundred feet away, who was in turn watching the river. She was motionless. The place where she was was almost dark and he could only make a rough sketch of how tall she was. He slowly turned his head around, not a living soul was around that place. The park was under a bridge and every now and then he’d hear the vehicles passing the great Mississippi. Now his thoughts were more inclined to paranoiac more than creative. What if she was something else? like not human?

He’d had heard rumors of this place being a graveyard before people finally decided to build a park over it. A cold blow of air veered his attention back to the lady standing at the edge of the park. It was almost 2 hours already and she didn’t move an inch from her place. Now he was afraid, with all those horror stories from his childhood and equally melancholic appearance of the river side at night, his heart started beating faster; like abnormally faster. He knew that something was not right.

He had few occasions where he ended himself in a really scary situation and today it was one of them. However a person boasts about not being afraid of supernatural, when kept in such situation will have thoughts of getting scared or being haunted upon somehow. He couldn’t be an exception. It was 2 hours and 20 minutes, he wanted to go home. But felt like that creepy thing was not looking at the Mississippi from the beginning. IT WAS LOOKING AT HIM. from the very beginning, cold chill ran down his spine, he was trapped, his inquisitive nature made him the prey of the spooky thing.

He looked around for the last time, even if he shouted, nobody would hear him. He was dead for sure. Without having a clue and scared mind, he rose from him bench, shouted out from his lungs, grabbed the shovel lying at the side of the field and darted off to the spooky figure.

The figure stayed motionless, like it was waiting for him. He ran toward it and just before the thing could gaze into this eyes he closed and hurled the metal part of the shovel into it. BANNGGGGG Something broke, slowly he opened his eyes and looked at himself. He was all right, even slowly he rose his head and looked towards the thing he just killed.

His hunt stood still, instead of falling to the ground. His hard impart decapitated the poor tree and its branches were all on the ground. Some moron tied a white shawl to the tree earlier that day. DAMN!!!!! He looked around for the last time in hope of nobody saw him. Luckily nobody was there, giggled to himself, went back to where his bicycle was and rode back home.

Read more from Bikrant here: Bikrant Gautam Blog

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