Unheimlich

I sat among the strangers in the crowd.
Some of them were soothing, and some of them…foul-mouth’d.
They asked me mockingly, “where is the monk and how old is the ale?”
And “why does he (poking another fella) like bones more than any fleshy country belle?”
My catatonic head just nodded to that (for I knew not what to tell!).
They looked nettled, and few of them turned pale;
They laughed sometimes, and sometimes they chanted ‘go to hell'!
These apparitions, pale and bright, and specter-like,
They looked nervous in the beaming light.

Suddenly, I could hear a cry from distant air;
I looked around, and I saw no one near.
I looked at the moon, covered with cloud…
Whirlwinds, and screams, and gushing sound.
Few minutes past, the whirlwinds stopped;
I saw a few hands, and I saw them chopped.
These hands were dusty, and their bones were gone.
The moon shone brightly, but there were none to mourn.
I kept sitting among those hands in the dark;
I liked it at times, but I missed the familial lark.

Abhijeet Halder is a research scholar at the University of North Bengal. His interest lies in schizophrenic catatonia.

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