'Like'

From the Frankly Spooking outtakes

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Nidhi sat in front of her laptop, her hands poised on the keyboard, face contorted into a knot of fury. Just what did these dumbos think of her? She was the nerd of the class, but that didn’t mean they demean her in this manner?

All that talk about ghosts and supernatural beings got to her earlier in the evening. They had managed to make her bunk the last language hour class, but at hind sight she felt she could’ve as well attended it. Couldn’t these people find a better topic to talk about?

It all began when Priya started talking about how her sister saw a ghost in her hostel bathroom. And that was it – everybody had a story to tell. Somebody’s aunt saw a ghost, somebody’s uncle saw one, heck – Rajiv’s brother even got to dance with one. Nidhi rolled her eyes as she recalled each one of those so called ‘anecdotes’. Losers all.

And when Nidhi asked them if they personally had seen even one ghost, none had an answer. That alone proved that there were no ghosts. Nidhi was smug about it, only to be rebuffed by them all. To the extent that they said she couldn’t see ghosts because ghosts didn’t like intelligent folks. They seemed to draw strength only from weak minds and hence tended to harass only them. So Nidhi would never get to see or talk to a ghost. Ha, what a genius explanation.

Now, as Nidhi opened her Facebook account, she decided to post about it. She sat in front of the screen, her mind a blank. Then she started typing.

About two years ago, my brother came running down from his room and whimpered to my parents – there’s a ghost in my window, there’s a ghost in my window. My papa went up with the scared little mouse that my brother is, and discovered the ‘ghost’ in the window was nothing but the shadow of a branch right outside, falling on the glass pane. It shook gently in the wind, thereby giving a feeling of ‘someone’ instead of the real thing – something. That is, the branch of the tree.

Which brings me to the question – do ghosts exist? Do they really exist, or are they just fragments of one’s imagination. After all, come on – I mean, nobody has seen God, right? I’m not comparing God with ghost, but the phenomenon is more or less the same right? In my opinion, unless you personally ‘experience’ something you cannot really say it exists. At least not with the confidence with which we so easily believe in the existence of supernatural beings which can’t be commonly seen with the naked eyes. We humans are so funny. On the one hand, we would not like to believe something which happens right in front of our eyes, but something such as a ghost, we’re only too ready to believe in.

I think it’s time we changed. It’s time we became aware of our own stupidity. And what for, all this? It does nobody any good. The weak just get scared, and the other folks just derive pleasure out of scaring them. So, I would like to take this opportunity to start a little contest here. In the comment box here, come up with an original ghost story. The best one wins a prize. The prize is a secret, and only after the recipient gets it, is he or she allowed to reveal it to the world. Howzzat? So come ye all, put on your best spooky hats and start penning away here.

She then added - Those folks who feel the comment box is small, could also email me. My email ID is the same as my FB ID. So get cracking folks.

She let out a sigh and  sat back, reading her post once again. After making a few changes, she hit the ‘Enter’ button and saw the post appear on her wall. She smiled. This should be fun.

She was about to leave to bed when (eyes slowly widening) she saw the cursor on her screen move on its own and click the ‘Like’ button.


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