The Terrifying Call

#story

We had shifted to our new bungalow not far away from the hospital where my father was posted recently. It was a very quiet and tranquil place far away from the maddening crowd of the city. My father spent most of his time in the hospital with his patients. I could rarely find him at home. My mother was a reputed interior designer for which she had to visit the various sites on regular basis. And I was very new to that place where I felt very lonely. I didn’t like that bungalow much as it was too far from my college and also there were no other people staying nearby.

Mom was busy in unpacking and arranging the things in the new home with the help of her staffs. I was not at all required. I took a leave from mom to attend the party at one of my friend’s place to celebrate our admission in our dream college.

At the party we had a lot of fun and entertainment. We were five of us to embrace the occasion. The party went on till 1 am after which we decided to go back to our places. I reached my home by 3am. It was seer darkness all around. I could only listen to the sound of a few insects rest everything was quiet. I was totally exhausted because of the travelling and the party. I rang the bell several times but no one opened it. Then I started to bang the door with full force. A letter fell down on the foot board. It said that my mother would not return till the next day as she had gone along with my father to visit my aunt who had met with an accident. She must have tried my number but my phone was discharged.

I couldn’t stand any longer. It was terrible. I didn’t have the keys and my phone’s battery was drained. To add on my problems, my phone started to ring. How was that possible? I took out my phone, no number, no battery, just a blank screen but it was ringing, breaking the silence of the night. I clicked on a button only to listen to the agonical shrieks and screams of people. My terrified shaking hands couldn’t control the phone and it fell down. The screen of the phone broke into pieces and the screeching ear piercing voice was coming from every broken piece. I forgot my tiredness and just ran from there. I kept on running till I found the orange tinch of the sun rays spread over me. Meanwhile, I had already reached in the city bazaar where the people were getting their shops ready for the day.

Getting relaxed for a while at a tea shop, I took a glance on the first page of the newspaper which read, “The Cardiac surgeon Dr Gupta died along with his wife in a car accident last night.”

© Anupam Mishra