What’s Scaring the Ghosts This Halloween?

The Annual Ghost Convention (AGC) was held every year a day after Halloween, that is November 1st. The main purpose of the day was to bring together all the like minded ghosts & review the year gone by. It was also a time to bond, refresh and discuss new strategies in the world of Ghosto-Sapiens. The meeting was attended every year by a large gathering of ghosts, some of whom were famous enough to be called celebrities with top grossing movies to their credit & some whom were still make a mark in the business . The usual list of the so called celebrities were all in attendance today that included Casper the friendly ghost, Chucky who had a recent blockbuster, Bloody Bones the Bogeyman, Mr Boogedy, Wendy & Sabrina the witches, Anabelle, Hotstuff the tiny red devil, Slimer from the Ghostbusters,Jack the ripper, Spooky the tough little ghost, Timmy the timid ghost and the ghostly trio of Stretch, Fatso & Stinkie etc etc. There were also the lesser known ghosts who worked in the shadows like the Mohini in her white saree, Ram Gopal Varma’s heroines and Miley Cyrus on a Wrecking ball.

This years President of the AGC was none other than Chucky. After his movie release last year he was unanimously chosen as the successor to Sabrina as the new President. The gigantic banquet hall was adorned with portraits of the famous ghosts on the walls. Right at the centre of the hall was a throne elevated so that it could be seen by all present. Chucky quietly took centre stage & he didn’t look happy at all. The buzzing crowd of ghosts suddenly grew quiet as they saw the ever ominous look on Chuckys face. Fatso gobbled up an ice cream Hotstuff was holding.

Chucky spoke in a grave tone.

“My dear friends. As you can all see, I am not very happy today. Actually I am never happy but today I’m ashamed to say that for the 1st time my unhappiness stems from the fact that last night I was scared to death by a family of humans.”

The entire audience gasped in shock. Timmy the timid ghost smiled. Its something he had been trying to explain to everyone for years.

Chucky continued.

“We have all been in the scaring business since times immemorial. And all of you know that its bloody exciting & thrilling to scare the living daylights out of these humans. Humans are stupid, they’ve always been so. They are scared of us and yet they make movies about us & scare themselves even when we aren’t around.”

Slimer chuckled, Bloody Bones glared at him with his bloodshot eyes.

“But last night I realised that things have changed drastically! I think the humans are developing mechanisms to counter us. Since it was Halloween night & all the humans were into the business of scaring each other dressing up like us which in itself is an insult to us, I thought I would take this opportunity to teach them a lesson. So I visited this nice looking family of stupid humans. As you all know, the father of the family is the toughest to scare & fathers have always been a curse to most ghosts in the past. As I am not the one to give up on a challenge, I went straight for the head of the human family because once the head is claimed, the rest of the family becomes a cake walk. I waited in the family bedroom in the corner with the lights switched off in the shadows with chicken blood smeared on my face & my knife in my hand. I saw him enter the room stealthily & fling his bag on the bed. Without switching on the lights he began removing his socks. Just when I was about to make a strike I was startled when I saw him coming towards me. I was confused for a moment wondering if at all he had seen me. And if he had, why was he coming towards me, rather than running away. He came right in front of me, suddenly turned his backside towards me & let out a huge burst of air with earth shattering noise. I thought my ears would explode ! But if you think that that was bad, the worst was yet to come. Within seconds the room filled up with a stench so strong that I felt I would die….and I am already a ghost right?!!!! * Stinkie looked around sheepishly * Gasping for fresh air I stumbled out of the room & somehow made it. I really thought that I would die again & become a human.

After the failed experiment, I was even more determined in my mission now. I decided to forget the dad & saw the mom busy watching TV. From the expression on her face she looked angry. I guessed that she must be watching some disturbing news on TV like the rape of a child that these humans seemed to be doing so often these days. What these humans don’t know is they should be scared of each other more than they are scared of us. I knew this was my chance & so with a scream I darted towards her with my dagger. To my utter shock just when I was beside her, she let out an angry scream herself & without even looking at me, grabbed me & flung me onto the TV! My head hit the TV hard & I literally saw stars! I was shell shocked!, I mean what the hell was going on! I was still trying to recover from what actually happened. That’s when I heard her screaming at the TV “Arnav, you deserved that punishment for hurting Kushi” . I looked at the TV still dazed. The top right hand corner said “Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon. That’s when I realised that she hadn’t even noticed me. She was more bothered about her daily soap!

With both my head & ego hurt I decided to leave the parents alone & target the children. I knew they had a teenaged daughter & son. Girls are always easy victims, so to be safe I decided to scare her feeling somewhat confident. I climbed upstairs & entered her room. She was in front of her dressing mirror. That’s when I decided to use the classic ghost trick of appearing behind her through the reflection in the mirror. So I took position just behind & to her right and I could see myself in her mirror. I put on the best evil grin I had & raised my knife. She was in front of the mirror engrossed in her phone. Suddenly she looked up, held her phone at an arms length & began pouting & clicking pictures of herself. She once held the phone towards the mirror & then away from the mirror. Its something the humans call selfies. I waited & waited but she just wouldn’t stop. Whoever said that ghosts cannot be captured in a photograph was not kidding because she didn’t see me in the pictures. Frankly speaking, even if she did I don’t think she would’ve noticed me because she was too busy adjusting her hair, her lipstick, her pout after every click. Each expression of hers seemed scarier than the previous one to me. After half an hour I lost my patience & my arm hurt holding the knife so I quietly left the room.

This was it. My only hope was now to scare their fifteen year old son. I had had enough of these games. No more hiding in the dark, no more using ghost tricks. I am a ghost and that’s scary enough. I decided that I’ll do it the old fashioned way. So I just opened his door & barged in & stood right in front of him with my evil look & knife pointing towards him. He just stared at me with a blank look. He looked more a ghost than me. With his tattoos, long hair, guitar in hand & smoke in the background. What was going on I wondered. He took a cigarette & inhaled & exhaled right on my face. I began coughing even though I had no lungs! There was some green stuff around in packets which humans call weed. Probably its their new Ghost Buster.I banged my head on the wall in frustration. He picked up his guitar and began head banging of his own. I left the house & vowed never to return again.

The entire audience was silent. The ghosts looked as if they had just seen a ghost. Fatso seemed to have lost his apetite for 5 minutes at least. Timmy seemed even more timid. Spooky didnt seem so tough anymore. Casper shook his head not wanting to say anything. The rest of them just ate in silence. Ghosts were indeed scared of the humans

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.