Editorial

Security

Politics

World

Letters

Sports

Obituaries

Magazine

Archives

A call from the
great beyond

Ian, my friend had been dead for more than a month when my phone rang. It was midnight cold in the house and me dragged, up from my slumber to answer the call. Helen, my wife had gone for the weekend and I was alone in the house, with the phone ringing incessantly. I then answered the call.

"Hello", "Hello John".

"Who is this?" I asked. "You know me. I am Ian, Ian West." I suddenly felt cold with a deep and intense fear with the receiver dead cold in my hand.

"Ian West died four weeks ago." I responded hesitantly.

"Four weeks, three days, five hours and forty five minutes ago to be exact."

"I want to know who you are!" I bellowed raucously, assuming this was but a sick joke. A chuckle the same dry chuckle I used to hear so many times.

"Come on old buddy. After a long spell, he said its your best and only friend. You know me!" "This is a damned poor joke." I remarked.

"No joke, John. You are there alive and I am here dead. You know something old buddy? I am really glad that I did it." The voice terrifyingly more familiar as I listened deeper.

"Did" he said. "Did what?" I asked.

"Killed myself, because death is just what I hoped it would be, beautiful and quiet. No pressures." "Your death was an accident," I said. "You car skidded into a barrier."

"I aimed my car for that barrier John, pressing the pedal to the floor. Doing almost a hundred when I hit it. It's no accident, John." The voice was cold and frightening.

"I wanted to be dead and I am not regretting it John."

I tried to laugh, make light of this, trying to match his chuckle with my own I did not want him to know my fear.

Telephone

"Dead people don't use telephones." I said confidently.

"I am not really using a phone, not in a physical sense. It's just that I chose to contact you this way. You might say its a matter of psychic electricity."

"As a detached spirit. I am able to align my vibrations to match the vibrations of this power line. It is sure and simple. Sure, simple and nothing more to it. Naturally you are sceptical. I expected you to be, but listen carefully to me John."

I listened with great terror, the phone gripped in my hand in that cold night house, as the petrifying voice told me things that only Ian West could know. I listened to his narration with rapt attention as he was giving me details of shared experiences extending right from the first moment I met him.

When he had finished I was definitely certain of one thing. He was Ian West. But how? I was unable to come to terms with him. I replied inarticulately, unable to speak as I was paralysed with bewilderment and fear. "Think of this phone as a medium, a line of force through which I can bridge the gap between us." The dry chuckle again. "You gotta admit, it beats holding hands around a table in the dark, but the principal is the same."

I had been standing by my desk, transfixed by the haunting voice. Then I moved behind my desk, sat down trying to absorb this dark miracle. My muscles were wire-taut, my fingers cramped by holding the metal receiver. I dragged in a slow breath, the night dampness of the room pressing me. "All right. I don't believe in ghosts, don't pretend to understand any of this, but I'll accept it. I must accept it."

"I am glad John, because it's important that we talk," he said seriously. A long moment of hesitation. Then the voice, lower now and softer.

"I know how lousy things have been, old buddy."

"What do you mean?" I answered, bemused by what he had just said. He replied. "I just know how things are going for you and I want to help you. As your friend, I want you to know that I understand your predicament."

"Well I am really in....."

"You have been feeling bad haven't you? A kind of downright brazenness."

"Yeah, a little I guess."

"I don't blame you. You have got reasons. Lots of reasons. For example, your financial problem."

"I am expecting a pay rise soon. My boss promised me one within the next few weeks." I replied positively.

"You won't get it John. I know. He is lying to you. Right now, at this moment, he is looking for a man to replace you at the Company. Your boss is planning to fire you."

"He never liked me. We never got along from the day I walked into that office."

"And your wife....All the arguments you have been having with her lately. It's a pattern John. Your marriage is over! Helen is going to ask you for a divorce. She is in love with another man. You will have no one John. Yes no one." Resentment

"You don't know him. Wouldn't change things if you did. There's nothing you can do about it now. Helen just doesn't love you anymore. These things happen to people."

"We have been drifting apart during the last year. However I didn't know why....I had no idea she was playing a double game!"

"Then there is Laura. She's back on it. John. Only its worse now. A lot worse" he intimidated.

I new exactly what he meant and the chills racked along my body. Laura was nineteen,my eldest daughter and she had been to drugs for the past three years.

She is gone too far with it John and now its too late to save her!

What are you trying to say? I inquired in earnest.

"I am saying she is lost to you. She has rejected you and there's no reaching her. She dislikes you and blames you for everything.

"I won't accept that kind of blame! I did my best for her." "It wasn't enough John. We both know that you will never see Laura again. Listen to me old buddy. Things are going to get worse, no better. I know. I went through my own kind of hell when I was alive." "I will start over, leave the city and go east where I could work with my brother in Fulham." I said assuredly.

"Your brother does not want you in his life. You would be an intruder, an alien. He never writes to you does he?" "No, but that doesn't mean..."Not even a card last Christmas! No letters or calls! He doesn't want you with him. John believe me." He replied.

Ian began to tell me other things about my life. He began to talk about the middle age and how it was too late now to make any kind of a new beginning. He spoke of disease, loneliness, of rejection and despair. The blackness was complete.

"There's only one real solution to things, John, just one. That gun you keep in your desk upstairs. Use it John. Use the gun!"

"What? No. I cannot do that."

"Why not? What other chances have you got? The solution is thee. Go upstairs and use the gun. I'll be waiting for you afterwards."

"I cannot use the gun. I, I, I am too scared. I replied." "There's nothing to be scared about it John, because you won't be alone," he said encouragingly.

"It will be just like the old days. We will be together and remember death is beautiful. No pressures. Use the gun John the gun, the gun."

I (John) have been dead for a month now and Ian was right. Its fine here. No pressures, no worries, just alluring and tranquil.

"I know how lousy things have been for you and they won't get any better."

"Isn't that your phone ringing? Better answer it! It's important that we talk!"

by Shivanka Indraratne

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security |
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries | Magazine

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager