Phantom- A Short Story

“There you are, standing here again!” I screamed at his face with eyes skewed in disgust but he stood there nonchalantly like nothing affected him, like he was a fossil carved in stone- rigid and unalterable.

“You know how I feel. Sometimes these nights make me so miserable that I get drunk on my sadness but you never bother. Even when I ask you just stand there watching my misery with a detachment that makes me feel so helpless,” I screamed at him but no words escaped his pursed lips. A silence spread in the room like fog and the cool breeze outside swaying the branches and making them dance could do nothing to calm me down. I blankly watched my silk curtains rustle like dried leaves. I was burning alone in my room after a long tiring day at office. He always said I loved setting myself on fire and that I would spill the milk just to have something to cry upon. I detested him for that but he would be adamant, coldly silently detachedly adamant.

“Remember how that hag would humiliate me?” I screamed at him.

“I do. She would call you stupid, said you were no good and that any investment on your education was a sheer waste of your father’s money,” he said.

“And when she slapped me twice, overlooked me at the school’s annual function and made me stand outside the class?” I said with a sadness seeping inside me like dampness in a wall.

“Yes, and she jeered at you and even made the class students do so. In that annual function, she pushed her own son onto the stage and got your performance cancelled,” he said.

“See, how much humiliation I had to suffer. I would not brood if there were any fault of mine but there was none. I was just a child of twelve and I needed support and love from my class teacher but no, that witch would hate me with all her heart. Oh, it makes me so depressed,” I muttered with my shoulders dropping down like a huge penalty was imposed upon me. He remained quiet.

“Remember, when at my cousin’s wedding that uncle would touch me lasciviously with innuendos? Ah! Till date I feel a surge of hatred towards him,” I cried cutting the thin veil of silence before it could grow thicker.

“Yes. I remember everything, nothing ever escapes my record. That uncle would stare at you with hungry feral eyes. He even gave you a long unwanted hug,” he said.

“I could have done something different. Couldn’t I?” I asked him, trying to flutter off my tears ready to rush out like a rowdy unchained pet.

“Weren’t you only fifteen? You did what you thought was best by your experience that time. You avoided him like plague and told your father about him. He sensed all that and didn’t come near you. May be you scared the hell out of him,” he said but without a tinge of sympathy in his tone.

“I did but that incident still makes my blood boil. He shouldn’t have done that,” I thumped the table with my fist.

“But he did and it is a fact,” he replied.

“I do not like recalling that wedding at all,” I grieved.

“Then why do you ask me to repeat it?” he asked.

“Because you are here right in front of me with all the indelible records and memories,” I cried. 

“Remember, when my first love left me, how badly I wanted to hang myself? I felt as if it was the end of the world. I never felt so cheap, so disgusted in my life. I loved him truly but he just wanted to have fun,” tears rolled down my cheeks.

“He did play with you, bandied your name around and made acerbic remarks about your looks but you moved on after he ditched you,” He said.

“I could have moved on earlier too but I was being an emotional fool. The bastard took me for a ride,” I lamented.

“You could but you did what a girl in her early twenties could have done at that point. You showed grace and accepted that he didn’t desire you. A quiet break up had followed,” he said

“Whenever I recall time spent with him I feel like I should have taken a befitting revenge. He dumped me like I was a mere piece of junk. I still want him to suffer; I know him, he must be dating another girl and I wish she does what he did to me” I let a curse out under my breath.

“You always ask me about him and I always repeat how he ditched you in love and that you were just a step away from an emotional breakdown,” He said.

“So what if you have to repeat? Let me figure out how I could have taught him a lesson,” I snapped back.

“But what is the logic? Even if you do figure out, you don’t know where the hell he is now and with whom. You find a pleasure in revisiting your green wound that you do not wish to stitch and I bear the blame of the pain you inflict upon yourself,” he said.

“Oh, come on,” I rolled my eyes and lay down on my cozy bed. I was alone with him for I liked to summon him in privacy, usually late post suppers so that no one could disturb our conversations.

“Let me be honest, I feel like leaving you forever. Understand that I need to rest in my depth and your life is full of beautiful days that are yet to come. However, I am tied to you and cannot escape. I have to come whenever you summon me,” he said with a mild irritation.

“Why are you so annoyed?” I was curious.

“Because I am simply fed up of repeating the same incidences over and over like a deranged parrot. These are painted upon the canvas of your life and will never change. If you find them ugly, change your angle of looking at your canvas. Only you can do that,” he said.

“But I have much blank canvas left,” I argued.

“Then why do you keep brooding about the small patch you find a bit off color. Haven’t I told you, it can never be repainted or modified in any way? You did your best but now after years you find a million new faults,” he said. For some moments, we sat in an intense silence pregnant with bitterness.

“My first boss stole my ideas. Remember?” I asked with a heavy heart like I was chanting a requiem.

“He did. Later he presented them by his name and won a promotion, kicking you out of his way,” he said.

“I could have told the management,” I stated firmly.

“But you didn’t. You chose the most feasible option; you could not afford to cross him at that precarious time,” he said.

“I mean things could have been much different. What do you feel?”

“I feel like banging my head against a wall. Sadly, I have no head to bang in the first place. What am I after all? I am just a spirit, a phantom of your past. I hold all the secrets in my bosom, like young lovers in theirs. All the past is stacked within me and I lie as dormant and still as skeletons inside graves till you beckon me and I appear with all that which has been there but now it isn’t, and will never be. You explore me every night to find something new; you feel the same pain, go through the same agony many times for pain is the drug you have got addicted to. You indeed are drunk on it. Your blessings outnumber your hurts yet you ask me to retell all those incidences every night and then rue yourself to sleep,” he said stoically.

“Just shut up!” I yelled. You make my life pathetic. I cry every time I recall all that which I never wanted; all that which could have been so different. All this past of mine is like that aftertaste of a vomit- disgusting but hard to define. I could have handled things differently. If only I were a bit wise, if only I were a little cunning, if only I were more outspoken. Oh! Phantom of my past, tell me why do you come and make my life so wretched?” I wailed but he stood unperturbedly.

“Tell me, who summons me every night?” he asked looking at me in the eye.

I found myself grappling for an answer.

***