I’ve had a fairly normal childhood. As far as I remember, I cannot recount myself having an encounter with the paranormal and that’s probably what excites me about the concept of ghosts.
I’ve grown up on a healthy diet of movies and an unhealthy diet of books, fiction mostly, my favorite genre being mystery and horror. There’s really no explanation to that, it just intrigues me for not so twisted reasons as one might expect.
Now I’m a 24-year-old working professional who has a terribly regular life except for the weird workings of her brain which mostly stay with her and are being shared with you today.
I live kind of right in the middle of the city which by definition is the most hustly-bustly part of the city. Even at 2 AM you might see or hear two or three bikes with the helmet adorned young people racing each other on rather, empty roads in comparison to other times of the day or just chatting up with the late night chaiwallah.
The entire locality is extremely lively with high rise building, big cars, small shops and everything within the reach of the hand. Except this one lonely, soulless building right next to mine. I pass it by every evening walking back home and it always draws me in to look at it.
Its presence itself is kind of eerie if you think about how full of people the locale is at all times. You might assume that it’s a building under construction and ask me, what is intriguing about a building under construction, it’s bound to empty by nightfall right?
That’s where you are wrong my friends.
It is a fully constructed establishment, all painted in white (which is quite dirty now, but must’ve been white when it was painted), low-rise building and you can see fixtures for bulbs and tube lights and grills for windows all in their place. All ready for possession except that no one lives there, nor ever has since it was made. And let me clarify, I haven’t gone through records of the building or anything, just hearsay.
One may rationalize the emptiness of the structure with a possible real estate feud which is not such an unplausible explanation except my mind refuses to accept it because all I can think is of ghastly things which are more interesting than the land feud.
Wait, ghastly isn’t exactly the word. I rationalize its emptiness in a different way. My mind brings science fiction into the picture and it seems like a fun explanation. A little piece of fear is out.
I’ve vocalized my theories of it being an unsuspected time travel portal from where no one comes back but it got laughed off. But that hasn’t stopped me from imagining about going into the building just to look around and maybe meet a time traveler there or travel time myself through those old lifts that have those double scrunch doors and absolutely obnoxious button and the wooden panel of the lift.
I see the behemoth of vegetation that has grown at the foot of the building, the dirty paint and the remarkably clean grills of the windows and the juxtaposition it offers for its surroundings so full of life in its dilapidated state like a testimony of the futileness of providing a home to this physical form of ours and how the realm of spirits is not always to be feared of, all you have to do is try to understand it.
I expect to see an apparition some time, going from one room to another.