The Shallow Canal (A Paranormal Story)

 

1.

After a week long wait, the dream was going to come true and she was in my boat now with no one else around. She was a beauty like a majestic piece of painting on a rare piece of canvas by a hand obsessed in a poetic delusion to create a masterpiece; one in a billion. I could get so easily lost with the glowing pair of eyes, spilling out the perfect embodiment of innocence. I was feeling so thrilled to take her along in a boat ride in the lake in my 1000 acre estate.

 

No one else is permitted to row a boat in this part of the lake; my favorite place, so close to the wilderness. It always gives me a soothing feeling in the serenity of the deep blue lake with forest lines along both the banks. Of course, there is a fence to keep the wilderness of the forests well inside the border fixed for them with all the creatures and beasts live in this darkest part of the forests. And I used to feel a chilling thrill particularly with the soul-sucking laughs of hyenas, while floating my boat on the lake under the shade of a night sky. There is a shallow canal that flows straight into the forest and sometimes on some very special occasions I used to row my boat past a little gap in the fence to enter the canal in the twilight. And the feeling of crossing the borderline into the dark was incomparable. And today was such a big occasion with a real beauty accompanying me.

 

She approached me a week ago and it was not a very unusual thing for a marriageable heir to such a big estate with the biggest metal factory in the county. The first thing that struck my mind was the pair of eyes: a warm, curious and gentle look focusing on the farthest horizon behind, through my heart.

 

I wondered why on earth I hadn’t ever come across a beauty of such magnitude in all these years. The mysterious beauty with a mystified smile on her lips was actually in a holiday trip to her aunt’s home in my county. She was a university graduate with an interest in old castles and the life style running through the heirs to the estates for centuries. The common people hardly make any approach of intimacy with the ruthless rulers of their ancestors, but she, obviously as an outsider, ignored the long lasting tradition of keeping distance with the lineage of blue blood.

 

I got everything ready on my boat and things were going smoothly as per the plan. And I never failed in the execution of my plans. I make sure to bring everything under my sole control. But today was a little different. She didn’t want to get herself exposed to anyone else rather than me. So, I had to pick her up outside the palace gate and take her to my secret way to get inside the estate boundary. There was a time when I had to use that secret path. And it was not far from the lake.   

 

The secret way was so closely associated to my strewn childhood days when I used to escape the unbearable silence inside the palace, without my mother. I can still remember the moments when we were together; two innocent souls in riches and luxury and in prison under the iron ruling of my father. And then one day she escaped abandoning me all alone in this large luxurious green void. All the traces and signs attached to her staying in the palace had been destroyed a long ago. But, I don’t know how, an old picture of her remained intact with me as a secret childhood possession. The image of a young lady, radiating warmth of love from an enchantingly beautiful face and an innocent pair of eyes, had become my only companion that I almost hated to look at but couldn’t help it.  

 

I forced myself back to the boat and to the only companion, while trying to re-imagine the exciting and mouthwatering plans I made to do with her. And I was on the right course, rowing the boat slowly towards the music of the jungle; towards my most favorite place in the entire estate.  Riding in an evening zephyr with the peace and tranquility and the mystifying muse lying deep down the unison of water and jungle, we were sitting in the bewildering silence. There was a small gap between us and the gap was filled in with one of the oldest collections of wine bottle from our seller and lots of fruits and the well-conceived plan I made for her. 

 

 

2.

I was familiar with the Konlabos fruit and a few years ago when I discovered the rarest tree in one of my solo voyage in the darkest part of the forest, I was over excited with joy. It was such a great feeling of temporary paralysis that I had learned to enjoy with the extract of the fruit in an artistic blend with wine. The near death experience, by lying upright under the open sky with the eyes wide open and the sense helpless in a brutal failure to connect with the organs of the unresponsive body, is something way beyond explanation. But, today was a special occasion and the wine was exclusively for the beautiful girl accompanying me.

 

As I got the boat close to the shallow canal flowing inside the jungle, I started pouring the special wine in one of the glasses.

‘Sorry, I’ve got an allergy in wine and I know it sounds really awkward, but I don’t drink it,’ she told in an apologetic tone.

But the tone seemed so familiar to me, a long way back from the past. My mother hated wine. And all on a sudden I feel an awkward chilling breeze flowing straight into my veins. It had to be a hallucination. The girl sitting opposite to me started melting away, radiating a glow; powerful enough to blind my vision and my mind. I felt thirsty and gulped down the wine from the glass even before a friction of second when I realized that I was doing something wrong. But, I was late by a friction of second.

 

I knew very well what was going to happen with me. I took the wine meant for the girl who was supposed to be my seventh victim. I used to feel so excited and thrilled by throwing the immobile bodies down the shoreline of the shallow canal by the forest for the feasting of hyenas. From the safest distance after moving out of the canal, I used to see the ghostly figures with burning eyes; blood-freezing screams and cackling laughter.

 

And my body was giving in fast; not like the moments I enjoyed in my bedroom or the green lawn by the lake when I took the special wine to enjoy the self-induced paralysis for hours together. I started shivering with all my strength to turn the boat around, but I couldn’t hold the grip of the rowing oar. The boat kept moving along the danger zone and hit the shoreline in the shallow canal and I fall down with my upright body half submerged and my eyes wide open overlooking the darkening sky in the twilight.

 

I know I won’t have to wait long. The hyenas could smell the living flesh, the last line of the centuries old inheritance from a long long distance. And soon enough there will be my permanent release from the castle- full of hidden blood stains and sighs- in the feasting and laughing of the beasts.

© Atique R.