The Dwellers Post Issue No 3

Love Forever by: M.B. Mohan

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Love Forever

Kolkata:
Sara returned from college and as always, it was another routine day. Dolly, her dog jumped on her as she was placing her bag on the bed. Dolly licked her face and she placed it on the floor. "Go out and play," she commanded. All the energy in her was drained and she was too tired to even play. The weather was too cold, so she wore a jacket before jumping on the bed. Though she wanted to take a nap, she couldn't. She switched on her laptop and logged into Facebook. "Damn, so many messages," she shouted loudly. She scrolled through the messages and chose randomly from the long list of strangers.
"Hi Sara," it said.
"Hi John," she said unwantedly. After a gap of 15 minutes, "How are you? I am from Mumbai," a message notification popped up.
"Ok, Do I know you?" she replied.
"No, you don't. But if you give me a chance, I would like to know about you. Let's talk as strangers for few days and if you don't like me, then we will stop talking to each other," another message came from the other side.
"No need, I am not interested," she replied with a serious face emoticon.
"Ok, sorry for the inconvenience. I like you and I really wanted to know about you. But it is ok, I respect your opinion," he replied with a smile and crying emoticon. After seeing that message, she chuckled and closed the laptop.
Her dad wasn't home yet, so she made herself a nice cup of coffee. After a while, she opened the laptop and opened John's profile. He had a photo of himself set for his profile picture and a picture of Maroon 5 on the cover. She always used the pictures of celebs for her profile pictures and avoided keeping her original information. She opened the conversation of her with John and checked it again.
"Ok, I'll give you a chance," she messaged him with a wink.
"Thank you, see unless we give a chance, how will we know the other person?" he replied after a while.
"Now don't lecture me or else I will block you," she laughed hard and hit the send button.
"Ok boss, sorry," he replied.
The clock ticked past 10 P.M and the conversation went on and on. Her dad came home and called her name out three times. She didn't respond, so he thought that she might have been sleeping. The distance decreased day by day between Sara and John. Five months had passed and they were in deep love, and it wasn't that love which happens in a day or two. The doubts vanished and a strong bond was formed. Small conversations turned into big and their words acted like seeds which helped them to grow a tree full of love. John never asked Sara to reveal her identity not even once in those six months,
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though he wanted to. It was her last day of college, the day she would complete her graduation. Her desire to meet John became too strong, so she finally decided to meet him.
As soon as she reached home, she opened her laptop and messaged John to make a plan so that they could meet. Her sparkling eyes and beautiful dancing hair showed the excitement in her to meet him. The coffee which she made for herself became cold and the ice cubes in the fridge turned into water. Still, there was no message from John. "He must have gone out," she said to herself. The sun had set and the moonlight reached her bed through the windows. Days passed by one by one, but there was no message from John. Her eyes became wet and dry innumerable times.
The past six months felt like six decades and she finally decided to go to MUMBAI. She convinced her dad to move to Mumbai, saying that she wanted to search for jobs there. But she was desperate to find out about what happened to John.
Mumbai:
Sara and her dad searched for a house and finally settled for one in the Margaret area, which they got for a cheaper price. It was newly built in an expensive area, but they never thought why the price was so low. The house was beautiful but it looked like it wasn't cleaned in a while. Colorful windows were filled with dust and the gate was rusted. "The house is yours now," the seller said in a soft voice. As soon as they opened the gate, a black German shepherd came running at them. The seller whistled from the side before it attacked and it stopped right in front of them. "You can leave now, we will see for ourselves," her dad said with a smile. The seller left and his dog followed him.

As soon as they entered the house for the first time, Sara felt a strange feeling inside. She caught her dad's hand with fear. "This is quite natural in new houses, Sara," her dad said by placing his hand on her shoulder. Her mom passed away when she was young, so she and her dad were the only people who used to live in their previous house. They roamed the whole house and Sara found she liked it more in real life than online. Her dad chose the first-floor bedroom and she chose the one next to the hallway. Her bedroom was nice with good ventilation and the bed was right next to the window. After dinner, she said goodnight to her dad and tried to open her bedroom door. It didn't open though she kept her full force. She felt weird and stood confused for a moment. After few minutes, the door opened finally opened on its own. Her room was dark and the lights which she kept on were switched off. She ignored it and went on to her bed.

She tried to sleep, but as soon as she laid her head on the pillow, silence spread throughout the room with the speed of light and for the first time in her life she heard her heart beat. The bed lifted her up and threw her to the side. Sara was baffled and thought it might be because of a nightmare. She laid on her bed and closed her eyes. "You cannot sleep on my heart, get up and move away," a creepy voice started growling from under her bed. The voice sent chills into her spine and the next moment the bed started shaking. She got frightened and ran to her dad.

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Her dad woke her up in the morning and made Sara a cup of coffee. "Dad, I still can't figure out whether what happened last night was real or not," she said. "When we move to new places, sometimes our brain creates illusions and we often fail to figure out what's real and what's not," her father said with a gentle smile. Though her father's words cleared some doubt, still somewhere she felt that something was not right.
She wanted to see what was happening in her room. After switching off the lights, she tried to sleep. The lights switched on and off automatically and it made her nervous. Though she wanted to leave that room, her curiousness was holding her from leaving. When she fell asleep, she got thrown away again from the bed, but this time with more force. She kept weeping and slept on the floor.
She was so scared to even enter the room on the third night, but she was not ready to give up. She got terrified even from the thought of sleeping on her bed. As soon as she fell asleep on the bed, she was shaken awake from sleep, she quickly moved to the corner of the room. "No! No! No!," a scary male voice started speaking. "Who are you? Why are you doing this? Please answer me," she shouted.
"I am sorry," a young man's deep voice came from behind. She was shocked and jumped on the bed. But this time she sat on it and closed her eyes. "Why can't I see you?" she asked. "You can't see me because I am a ghost. I can see you, but you cannot see me." When she heard this, she started biting her nails and scolded herself for being so stubborn.
"Why are you here?, Why are you scaring me and telling me not to sleep on your heart," she asked in a low voice. "I had completed my studies and was doing a fine job in MNC. I had fallen in love with a girl online. Her name was Sara, the sweetest girl I knew. I never thought I would become so close to someone without even meeting once. We were inseparable and it went on for six months. But my fate wasn't favorable to me. On April 12, 2016, as soon as I completed my work at night, I was traveling home on foot, as my room was near. It was too dark and the street lights were not working. I heard the footsteps of someone from behind me and I stopped to see whether or not they were following me. My guess was right, they were chasing me. I was running with fear and I thought only about her. Nearby a house was under construction and I went into it. A guy with a knife came from the other side and stabbed me several times. He took a photo from his pocket and compared it with my face. "We made a mistake, he is not the guy we are looking for," he said to the other guy. My eyes shut down after a while and they buried me in the place where you placed your bed," he said with tears in his eyes.
Sara listened to every word he was saying and stood there unmoving. He continued, "As soon as I died, I was before God in heaven. I was not happy over there. I requested God to send my soul back to earth for some period so that I can find my love. Though God sent me down, I couldn't move from this place. He offered me a little time to wait for my love because he didn't want his child to cry for a long time. I will be leaving this place forever after 12.00 A.M."
There were tears rolling from her eyes, but hearing his last words she came out from shock and asked him, "What's your name"?
"John," he replied.

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At the very moment, she realized that this was her John, the man who she loved. The man she came to Mumbai to find. She shouted, "John"... no reply came. She again shouted "John! John! please answer me. I am your Sara". But he was no more. His soul left this world, as it was already 12:00 A.M.
She fell to her knees and wept like a little child. She realized how much he loved her and why he was saying not to sleep on his heart. Their meeting explained why God didn't allow him to move from that place. She believed that God might have told him about her by now.
The next day, she told her dad about the incident and took John's bones from that place. They burned them and gave John a farewell. She lived her whole life with the memory of him.