The Dark Room

There are such movements in one's life that make one forget the mere existence of his life and of the world around him. Such things may seem unbelievable to most readers—so surreal they are. One incident of this example is that of the Dark Room.

Now the Dark Room was part of an old dilapidated mansion in some old colonial area in Calcutta. We do not know who owned it when it was built but we do know of a room on the ground floor, so very concealed by debris and weed that sunlight barely reached it. Its only piece of furniture was an old oak rocking chair with broken handles. Sometimes, deep in the night, neighbours to this mansion would hear a creaking and rocking noise as if the rocking chair was moving as well as a tapping of boot heels coming from that room. They classified it as paranormal activity and nobody preferred to stay out in that neighbourhood late at night. They were scared of these occurring as most of them were new to the locality. Old residents attributed it to the ghost of some long-gone British officer killed by revolutionaries. A certain member of the Supernatural Detectives, Mr. U Mitra, wished to investigate this paranormal case. If only he knew what a foolish decision he was making, he would have saved himself from trouble. Ignoring all advice from the locals, he made his way to the house one Amavasya night at 19:00 hours and did a quick survey following which he settled down in the Dark Room, on the floor. He waited for hours and hours but there was no sign of any ghost. Then he sensed a certain fragrance of a perfume used by women and a slight, almost negligible sound of feet.

Then silence for some time. After that, he heard the sound of a bullet being fired followed by the scream of the lady. Then bootheels came tapping from some other part of the house and the apparition entered the room, armed with the hot recently used pistol in one hand, and a torch in the other. These he aimed at Mr. Mitra such that he could not see the stranger's face and Mr. Mitra pleaded in English so that the ghost may not shoot him. The ghost replied in an English accent with a pinch of sarcasm, 'Of course, I won't shoot someone as uncivilized as you—dark-skinned Negroe! Rather, I shall strangle you to death!' Mr. Mitra, otherwise very courageous, felt all his courage slip from him and he began crying for mercy and the Englishman, keeping his pistol aside, lay his hands on the detective. He felt cold icy fingers on his neck and struggled to get free but the harder he struggled, the tighter the grip. He began having great difficulty breathing and lost consciousness. The next day, people found his dead body lying on the Nimtala Burning Ghat's premises. How it got there is a question mark but there were white marks on his neck inflicted by the Englishman in the Dark Room...