When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t see anything. I could hear the night though. This meant I wasn't dreaming. I've always had silent dreams, or so I've always believed. To make sure, I touched my face, felt the cheek bone, the stubble. The sensation was real, it was me, I was awake.
It was pitch dark. 'A black out', I thought at first. So I looked towards the window, for some light. There was no window. Frightfully, I then strained to see the ceiling. It was tar black. My hands, table-fan-pillow-bottles- I had begun to panic -lamp-ashtray-watch, nothing. I was sweating profusely by now, and all I could hear was my heartbeat screaming insanely amongst many shapeless scattered thoughts. Confused thoughts. Scary thoughts. Scary confused thoughts. I closed my eyes, thinking everything would be fine the next time I open them. Like naive children. Like some dream from which you wake up, relieved that it was a dream! When I opened my eyes, my world seemed darker than before. And the darkness kept growing, until it sucked in everything, as if it were a black hole, a blind vortex, an excruciating hunger. I thought of shouting for help, but didn't. I was too scared, too afraid that some evil might become aware of my defenseless presence. Instead, I held my breath for a long time, pretended to be inert. It occurred to me then that it might be better to sleep. Better still to dream. But my dreams are always silent. 'Vision but no sound, or vice versa?'. Without answering the question, I decided to stay awake. 'And besides', I reasoned, 'one cannot sleep for ever'. I sat up slowly and placed my feet on the floor. A chill ran down my spine, and then it recoiled back. There was no floor. I felt like crying, and slowly the knot in my throat tightened. This same tenseness began to descend. My arms felt distant, thick and heavy, like a bulky rope, getting bulkier with each pulse. And so did the torso. But right then, the floor started to slide under my leg, very slowly, as if it were a conveyor belt. Touching the heels first, then reaching the toes. And for a moment I thought that my legs were moving away from me. I clinched to the floor harder. The floor was cold. And then, because of the sweat, became wet. My heels pricked. Still sitting, I tried to grope for my slippers, and after a long time, found only one. I willed to get up and got up suddenly, in one jerk, in the process almost loosing my balance. But before that, I wore the slipper and willed to will.
I took few steps, warm-cold, warm-cold…, and hit upon something, loosing my balance again, but managed to stop myself from falling. A slightly raised floor, I discovered was the cause, after going down on my knees and touching the side where the two floors met. And noticed that the rise was very small, almost unnoticeable. 'Yes, the raised floor'. In an instant my entire apartment flashed in my mind. And I knew the direction of the door from where I stood. I got up to move, this time my hand groping the blackness, running almost parallel to the floor. I was relatively calm now. I took a step forward, and fell. Hitting my head hard onto the floor, hurting my shoulder and the elbow. I totally forgot about the raised floor that towered in front of me. Getting up, with a dizzy head and an aching arm, I headed for the door. The fingers, feeling the bump that had suddenly appeared on the head, became wet. For some time I was unsure whether it was sweat or blood. Blood, I finally decided, having tasted it and felt its texture between my fingers. Somehow, the thought of reaching the door assuaged my fears. I had no idea why I felt so, or what I would do after reaching there. Everything, after all, was black. Right then, I thought, a hand touched my elbow. I jumped instantaneously, 'Who is it?', my head pointing in that direction. 'Hello?'. For a long time I didn't move. I held my breath and squatted, like a frog. Tried to listen some sound, a step, an anklet, anything; in the process intermittently twisting my neck, and waist in every possible direction. I closed my eyes, and realized that I felt better. I didn't open my eyes for a long time. Tried to breathe hard. Harder. And even harder. Puffing up my mouth with all the fear and letting it out. A white calm reigned over me, that felt divorced from all the things I had known since. When I opened my eyes later, I knew very well that nothing was going to change. In that instant, blinks, became meaningless to me. A stroke of uncanny ruthless chance made me aware of something I never imagined was in me. It occurred to me then that I'd better get my eyelids stitched.
I headed for the door, the trouble was I didn’t know where to go. The fall had left me completely disoriented. I knew I was still somewhere near my bed, but felt directionless. I kept walking – if one can call that walking – inside the apartment for a long time, in search for the door. And as I walked, everything seemed sudden. There was no continuity. During this time, I fell many times, got bruised all over, and was bleeding from many places. My palms were sticky and slippery from all the blood. By now, they had dried several times. The blood was black, my body slightly numb. I went around the apartment, searching for the door, negotiating the paths, bumping into things, causing them to fall, picking them up (sometimes they were broken, sometimes intact), making sense of the space, touching new shapes, smelling new smells, noticing new sounds.
When they broke open the door several days later, I was found in an obscure corner almost touching -but separate from- the door. The apartment looked as if it had just come out of an earthquake. At first, they thought there had been a break-in, and that somebody had beaten me up. Badly. But somehow quickly concluded otherwise. No one came near me, or touched me. The reason for this, someone told me later, was my ghostly appearance. Many bruises and cuts. Black, red and yellow, the dark corner. From a distance, they called out my name, softly at first and then loudly, as if they were knocking at someone's door. As if, I was the door. There was no response. Somebody suggested, with a tinge of derision, that I was dead. But even after considering me for dead, nobody dared to come close. 'Most deaths are not beautiful', I'd think later, 'Something deep buzzes in you when you look at a dead face, and not many call that music'. I finally writhed, and slowly got up on my feet, like an old woman, humped, with parched lips, shaking. I felt heavy as I was getting up. My body was facing the direction where the voices dwelled. I stared at the floor for a very long time. That's when I recalled everything. Looking up, I finally spoke, the voice felt distant, almost alien, 'No....door....'. 'The..re.....are.........no.....door..s. An..t..s, only....an..t..s’, smiling convulsively, nearly breaking into laughter. Almost immediately, the floor vanished again.
