My grandpa's real story..Castles came down crashing

She was lost to me since last three years. However, she used to visit me not infrequently. However, the gap seemed to me a long one this time. As I was walking along the pavement, I spotted her in the midst of some passers by. I rushed to her and asked her, if she would accompany me to a nearby town which we had visited earlier. Those were days when our grandchildren were growing fast to get married sooner or later. I hoped to pick up the thread from where we had left off then. She sighed and accompanied me. The town was just less than a hour's ride from our place and was just like any other town bustling with activity. The town had plenty of shops, theatres, restaurants and pavement shops, the boys yelling hoarse over their wares. The streets were always crowded and boisterous and busy till the last quarter of the day when shops owners downed their shutters for the day.

The day was young when we got there and being November, the chilly weather had just set in. There was a thick veil of mist overhanging the town, just unusual at that time! The streets were half empty and the few shops that were open showed not much activity. No more the high pitch yelling of the boys over their wares spread on the pavement. As the mercury fell below normal, the sky was overcast with dark clouds. The few passers by were seen scurrying as quickly as there heels would carry them to their houses as if perhaps to escape from some unknown, unseen impending calamity that was to befall the town.

Our hopes of catching up with time lay shattered, our search for what was not there, remained as such. Looking up, my eyes fell on a dusty disused roadway by the side of an ancient granite in mud wall almost reminding one of the Great wall of China. The road was supposed to link a Head Quarters town a hundred kilometres away. Our Hi-tech CM, with a penchant for turning everything old and ancient to a pleasant one for the benefit of tourists, had ordered men grill railings to be placed alongside the ancient wall, perhaps, more to prevent it being broken up by stray, speeding motorists than getting getting their bones broken in their hurry to get quickly to the other town. A few of the railing had already come up and they had been painted grey and silver and seemed to peep out as would newly wed blushing brides from their ancient veil of mud. I showed the contrast to her, but she was listless and didn't seem to evince any interest on it. The excitement, expectation, when we wandered hither and thither like love birds making ourselves merry over even petty things that our eyes set upon in our earlier days was not there.

As it was almost lunch time, I suggested that we go down town to a gay restaurant, which we used to visit on our previous outings here. On the way she wanted to purchase some gold. I proposed to take her to a nearby gold shop before lunch, but she preferred to have lunch first. We reached the place to find it as sullen and moody as the rest of the town, the grey mist had possibly followed our foot steps and managed to get there earlier to give us a chilly welcome. A pale gloom overhung in its spread. However, we made bold to enter the place and purchased ourselves lunch for a couple of dime.

Lunch was always served upstairs and as we climbed up the stairs, a chill ran down my spine, for there seemed to be something out of place unusual that was brightly painted as though they were in disuse for a long time. People wore a pale gloomy look and seemed to haunt our every step doggedly. As we turned the corner, a weird looking figure sprang up from nowhere and made signs that we go elsewhere and we quit the place quickly. I dismissed him as unworthy to take note of, but as an afterthought, I looked down after climbing down few steps and surprisingly there was no sign of him anywhere. I steered her to a vacant table and as we were about to make ourselves comfortable, she was no more by my side. She had disappeared into thin air. The castles that I had built around her came crashing down the thick veil of mist, which was more darker than before. A sudden silence of the sepulchers descended; I was staring at the vacant space beyond; I don't know for how long.

C.B.S
16th Nov, 1999