Insomnia from Ghost Stories

My favourite grade in Elementary school had always been the fourth. Fourth grade was revolutionary turn in a lot of different aspects in through school ; the  friendships I made, the subjects I excelled in and even the things I began to care more about. I was finally part of a clique. People began to see me as that "earthquake-freak" girl, which I must admit felt like a rather silly form of recognition but it was good enough. I scored flawless grades in almost all of my classes. Even in Math! Crazy, right? 

But beneath all of that, a little driving force had existed which pushed me in middle school to do my best. First obviously, it was, my sister who could not bare to see the disastrous marks from my third grade Math and English tests but had ever so kindly supported me through her "not so- monstrous" form of tutoring to help me perform better in my classes. Second, it was the heat of internalised competition. 

Every one in the fourth grade knew what they were doing, but everyone also had the secret desire to be better than someone. I know I did. Every single question on a textbook felt a stepping stone towards defining our identity. Does this answer make me sound scholarly? Will my good grades be affected if I did not pull up my stockings? Does the way I tie up my hair represent the neatness of the project work I submit?

Anyways, sliding past all of this ridiculousness, ,everyone just wanted a sense of approval. But I can never justify if it was always the good kind. Everything felt like a test. A test for your organising skills. A test for your presentation skills. A test for your communication skills. The least perpetuates till the core of this planet and no, I am not fibbing.

Now, here comes the test of bravery. Which by the title, you can presume, was obviously something I dwindled in... miserably. 

It was a dark and a stormy morning. ( Ha! dark and story.. cliche.. I know ) Our fourth grade section were having a class in the library.  Essentially, this was not really a class as it just gave students the opportunity to explore and look for some good books to enjoy. My personal favourite books to borrow from the library were always the Goosebumps series. I shall stop you here to clarify that this precious book series, was NOT in account of my condition. Reading Goosebumps filled me with nothing but genuine delight. However, I would never receive the same effect when it came towards listening to a true ghost story from none another than.. THE LIBRARIAN!

Our class was about to end in at least 20 mins and everyone had gotten bored from looking through the books. Our school did not have a diverse variety because many of them were meant for students in nursery. The novels we were given to read had some complex vocabulary which only few students could understand and be occupied with. Luckily, in time our librarian advised us to sit around her in circle on the room carpet. She had a thick black book on her hand, and on the back was an illustration of a Bengali folk demon.

Once everyone had seen this, frowns were carved into excited smiles. I will not go in depth into the stories that she told us about I will try my best to give a near-perfect summary.

Basically, all of our imagination had been encouraged to shift towards a very dark period that had occurred in the midst of the bustling city life of Dhaka. Way towards the edge of the town, there was once a farmhouse owned by a rich family who were attending a wedding and had asked a young female servant to look after the house. Once the servant was left alone in the house, she had constant visions of a pale, long haired and ghoulish looking spirit who followed her around the house. It was believed that the spirit belonged to the primitive residents who treated her with injustice, and had later committed suicide.

The most intriguing element of the stories our librarian told us, was how the majority  of them were not the ones she read from her book. She said to us that these stories were passed from friends to friends, who have heard strangers, passed on from other strangers and then from the people who actually who knew what had happened.

Another thing I noticed in her stories, was how much of our culture had connected with it and that aspect had made me feel that the stories were true as can be. Many of the stories she told us were tragedies that took place in impoverished settlements or in abandoned villages, of young women dying from tragic accidents and their spirits haunting people. 

There were thousands of different stories like this and also some that were similar from the book she read to us. However, none of those stories had matched the intensity of the ones she shared with us verbally.

I thought about them all day during the classes. All the time during recess. All the time when I drove back home. The envisioned horror had never left my brain. My imagination was going out of control and I kept on thinking that some form of faceless, ghoulish and dark haired spirit was following me. 

It was not until the night before I went to bed, that I had realised how much of the ghost stories I have heard had really infused into my mind.

I was sleeping peacefully. Not until the clock at struck 2 am. It was the dead of the night and my eyes just fluttered open. The entire house was fast asleep. Not a single sound can be heard from the entire neighbourhood.

I slowly sat up on my bed and just looked around in the dark room. I had one balcony on the side of my bed with a sliding door, and most of the time it was easily to notice the silhouette figure of the neighbours living next door. I stared at the window for a while and gradually my brain automatically transformed into a sponge, now being porous to all sorts of horrific ideas, at the most perfectly, worst time, of the night.

And that is when I remembered the stories our librarian had told us. Tall, long haired ghoul floating around in the air. White bloody dress. Faceless spirits. It all just came back to me and now I could not get it off my mind. Then it came to my justification that I was probably not going back to sleep. I was not ready to be possessed by a spontaneously approaching ghoul. I asked myself these completely nonsensical questions! " How old is this apartment?", " Who was it again that told us the neighbourhood was build on top of a graveyard?", " Are there some restless spirits envious of my blossoming life in flesh"?

Everything that did not make sense through any funnel of logic, made sense and it frightened the life out of me. I felt transported, but everything I thought about was just my imagination going haywire.

The days in school after those dreadfully sleepless nights, I was practically the class zombie. I could not function well when it came to gathering ideas for group projects, answering questions or snapping back at my enemies with a clever insult comebacks. In the nights, I was strictly alert of fighting the non-existent demons in my house, while in the days I would accidentally walk into a glass door  without pushing it aside.

Everyone in class became aware of the way I acted. I could already sense the gossip developing through whispers and giggles that echoed through the hallways. 
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There was one time where my I was minding my own business in the school cafeteria, when a group of girls from my grade, but different section had sat down to "chat" with me. I did not feel like talking to anyone as I normally did. However, these rats had attempted to push my buttons to their worst. They kept on teasing me over and over, coming up with nasty reasons on why I arrive so late in school or what really kept me up at night.

All it took was an unnecessary impulse to get this ridiculous idea out of my mouth : The truth is... I AM A VAMPIRE!! . Even to this day, I cannot escape without wincing at least once when the memory of this scenario rings back into my head.

I really could not believe that I said that. I expected this to make me sound like a cool and mysterious person. But now everyone just thought that I was a freak. Only in a matter of seconds, the entire cafeteria burst into laughter. I could have sworn that I even saw the lunch- server force back a chuckle.

From that day on, my problem was never solved. At one point, I was actually worried that  maybe some supernatural force had taken over my soul during the nights I stayed awake and that I was never going to return to my normal, human state.

It took days. No, weeks. No, actually a month. Oh why bother justifying ; this felt like forever and I was miserable! The fear of those stories had slowly drifted away from my mind and I came back to sleeping much more peacefully.... all the way to sunrise. The truth about how I recovered was actually quite funny.

The scariness of stories were so powerful and triggering, it was hard to keep them known towards oneself  I must say. So, I decided to share them with other people!

I could not think of a better audience than kids who were younger than me! 

Gotcha! Sorry, I am still working on fooling my  readers with twisty conclusions but unfortunately, they end up sounding cheesy.. or just cruel.

Nevertheless, I apologize for all of that.

Anyways, I shared the stories to people I knew in my household ; my parents, my sister and primarily people who looked like they were brave enough to enter an abandoned farmhouse...

I even told the stories  to my neighbours. Many of them thought that it was just rubbish and made up folklore to brainwash young kids like me. A lot of people told me that my librarian must have been insane to share something so gore. And then, many had reacted the way I did ; walk away pale faced and jump at any loud sound or reflection.

But at the end of the day, sharing those stories and just receiving a variety of reactions, I came to understand one thing. It was all passed down. The more dispersed the stories had felt, the less of a distinction or fright it poured onto me. Everyone was familiar with the idea, and genuinely, it was sort of thrilling experience to know how to make conversations more interesting.

Again. It was a story passed down. And I fell in love with the aspect of how much power and excitement it had given the rise to. Finally, I realised that it is stories like these that actually fill readers with sense of adventure and anticipation. I was not able to see this side before, because I pushed myself too far into delving into it.

Lastly, my credits truly goes to this moment in my life where I was genuinely inspired in writing my own stories. Scary ones.

I was never really upset or mad at my librarian due to the daunting effect her stories had struck on me. Instead, I felt thankful. I felt lucky enough to have something interesting to share with other people, as things like these usually lit up a conversation.

And then like a charm, I figured it all out. That was the effect I would want when sharing my stories with people. Stories that get people thinking. Stories that chill people to the bone. Stories that keep us up all night with wonders and horrors and fantasies and....

Hey! If I get to live through terror  like that, EVERYONE else should!!

Just kidding! Sorry, again... that was just cruel.