“Are you OK, Ashish?”
“Ya I’m fine. Sandal’s broken though……”. He paused. “Dude! You gotta see this!”
I stepped through the Hedge, and came out of the Ditch. The scene on the other side was surreal.
A huge clearing. Barren, no grass. On the other side, I could see that the area was encircled by the Hedge and the Bougainvillea. But this was not all.
Smack in the middle of the clearing, was what looked an old Ashoka tree. There were no leaves on the tree, and it’s silhouette looked entrancing, especially in the dark.
A chill ran down my spine. I instantly felt something was not right.
“Guys, this is the tree Shankar Anna was talking about. He didn’t want us going near it.”
Pratham was entranced by the tree. He started walking towards it.
“Pratham, don’t !”, Ashish warned.
“Now that we are here, it wouldn’t hurt to look around! That tree looks really freaky!”
We reluctantly tailed him. I started to worry about the incoming rainstorm. The lightning had become frequent.
After about five minutes, when Pratham and Ashish had their fill of observing the tree and it’s surroundings, I put my foot down. I had kept my distance from the tree, and was desperate to leave.
Pratham headed back to the hedge. I followed him, when I looked around for Ashish. He hadn’t stopped looking at the tree.
I called out. He still didn’t respond. I walked over to get his attention. When I reached him, I saw that he was blankly staring up at the branches. I tried to snap him out of it, but he kept staring upwards.
It was then that I followed his gaze. He was looking towards a spot between the trunk and branches. I couldn’t see anything, but then there was a streak of lightning, which lit up the sky. I struggled to grasp what I was looking at.
I don’t know what to call it. Let’s say there was a creature, which was human at some point of time. It’s limbs were thin and pale. The body was bony and frail,almost non-existent. It was hanging from a branch, and was staring down at us with it’s face tilted towards the side. Long, white hair dangled from its head. It’s eyes were hollow, like two pieces of coal.
But the face. I’ll never forget the face. It had no cheeks, all it’s teeth were exposed, in a sort of eerie….. entrancing…..smile.