Who is that?
Who is that ?
I could hear my heart pounding. Is it 160 beats per minute or even more? I could not come to terms with what I was experiencing. Is that really what it is? Should I move or make a sound, or is it safe that I stay petrified? Who is behind me? I know it has the voice of my mother, but it is not my mother.
It was the weekend after a graveyard shift at BPO. I was sleep deprived and was about to hit the bed after 29 hours of wake time. I shopped and spent time out of the house for a long time. I came back to see my dad leaving for his night shift. Exhausted but adamant about sleeping, I relaxed on the couch while my mother was preparing dinner.
After dinner, mom and I retired to her bed and were deep in conversation. My brother was in Dublin for his MS. So, it was just mom and me having our time then. Mom reminded me nth number of times to clean my closets before retiring for bed that day. I assured her that I would do it tonight, and our conversation gradually led us elsewhere, into a plethora of topics. We planned a vacation for my brother’s next visit to India; in fact, we both took a virtual vacation. A typical mother-daughter conversation
There was this one thing about the house we lived in then. We entered the main hall, with bedrooms diagonally facing each other. The left bedroom has a balcony which connects to the hall from behind, but not to the right bedroom. If I lock both the left bedroom doors—the front door and the one leading to the balcony—to the hall, no one can enter the room. One can knock on the front door of the room, but there is no access even to knocking on the back door of the left bedroom.
Post our talks ,I headed to my room—the left bedroom, and I very much remember locking the two doors of the left bedroom and drawing the black curtains to my window, preparing myself for a perfect long sleep. Next, I slept on my stomach with my head buried in the pillow. Ah, the feeling of relaxing in bed after 29 straight hours.
I am not sure how long I was in that position. 1 minute? 10 minutes or an hour? That is when I felt it. Two palms slowly placed ever so lightly on my dorsum, a gentle push and my mom’s voice calling me softly “Swetha”. My immediate thoughts were, “Oh no, the closet.” Here is mom, asking me to clear it. But, let me act asleep to escape,” and I acted asleep, sleeping in the process.
Again, it could have been 1 minute, 10 minutes, or an hour; I came to my senses, yet kept my eyes closed. Petrified to move or to make a sound. I could feel that my sense of hearing had increased one thousand times, and my only focus was on hearing anything non-human around me. I was trying hard to find the logic of my mom’s entering a locked room and was debating if I really locked the room.
After a period of “I don’t know how long it is,” I thought about one thing. Let me face it. What am I afraid of? I was determined not to lie down scared. I got up in a swift motion, turned the lights on, and checked both the doors. On confirmation that I had locked both the doors, I sat wondering on my bed what might have happened. It was surreal. Should I be scared? Surprisingly, I was not. Half of my mind was telling me that this is not a common incident, and the rest of my mind was telling me that the “supernatural” can wait, and you go and sleep, as my body was tired and exhausted from even thinking further. I came to the decision that I would investigate it later and went straight to my parents’ room, where I saw my mom sleeping peacefully and slept beside her for the night.
To this date, I tell myself that I was too exhausted, and my mind was playing tricks on me. Yet, one possibility haunts me: what if I woke up and answered the call of my name?
