(เรื่องสั้นสยองขวัญภาษาอังกฤษเรื่องนี้ลอกมาจากเรื่องสั้นของราชาเรื่องสยองขวัญของเมืองไทย ครูเหม เวชากร ตัวเอกคือนายทองคำ เด็กกำพร้าอายุ 12 ขวบที่อาศัยอยู่กับยายและญาติในชนบทของไทยในช่วงเวลาประมาณ พ.ศ.2476)
Once my late grandfather cited an ancient adage : you are blessed to live in an interesting time. I thus wondered whether our current situation ,which was fraught with a plague, could be defined as such a time. The members of our community had gradually perished like the falling leaves from this accursed disease , leaving their beloved ones utterly grief-stricken. One could hear the incessant weeping and sobbing from the houses he was passing by. Perhaps the thing worse than death itself was to be perpetually haunted by the faces of the deceased whose loving memories we had shared and treasured so much. This painfully gnawed our souls to the naked bottom ,especially when our thoughts were drifting whilst we were in the solitude.
It was also lamentable that the most modern medical science in such an impoverished village of ours was the self-taught ageing experts with the secret recipe of herbal medicines along with the incantations to heal the patients. But now these yielded noughts but only prolonged the delusion of the people to survive.
The rumour also had swirled around our community that the Lord of Darkness was seeking to collect the human souls as the worthy bounty to hell. He would stop his mission ,only if there weren't enough spaces for burying the corpses. The evidence about this claim was unfounded -via someone's recurring dreams- but human belief seemed not to be disturbed by this kind of fact whatsoever.
Nonetheless , the plaque became mixed-blessing for me that my school was closed indefinitely , but I had to confine myself to my house like most of our folks - the voluntary lockdowns. I used to spend an evening relishing games ,especially fishing with my friends in the river. Now only thing I could do was to sit alone in the balcony to watch the afterglows above the faraway mountain. The bell from the temple not far from my house abruptly resounded . This used to convey the serenity to me , but now it was sending a shiver up my spine. It was like the ominous sign of the creeping death , though it was merely a signal for the monks to assemble in the chapel. My grandmother anxiously warned me to get back into the house.
In the night, after our meagre dinner, my grandmother would light the candles and the joss sticks on the little shelf of Lord Buddha image and lead me to say a prayer solemnly. We had aimed this to ward off all the sinister spirits. She told me that now was the night of the Buddhist holy day. The hell would unleash the ghosts to be fed by the merits made by their families or relatives.If some ghosts unfortunately had no one, they would roam the earth, desperate for their human benefactors. I asked her what if an afterlife didn't exist : an existence of human being absolutely vanished as soon as he died. My grandmother shook her head and yelled not so loud at me that I was talking drivel. She said the other-worldly like the spirits actually existed , as there were plenty of trustworthy records of our ancestors about them. I found her theory quite convincing.
Our atmosphere became melancholic when we heard the monk's prayers at a funeral ceremony of our neighbour. Undoubtedly , the number of the guests there was low. But I presumed that the dark area around the funeral ceremony would be descended on by the crowd of uninvited guests like the gamblers whose fears of death and spirits were vanquished by greediness. However, I secretly admired it as a symbol of human's determination to thrive in the macabre valley of death.
I was still awake in the mosquito net beside my grandmother whose snores discomforted me sometimes. I pensively stared at the little image of Lord Buddha on the shelf. The light -dwindling in tandem with its melting candle -reflected the Lord Buddha's small but tranquil face. He died , in other words, attained the Nirvana more or less 2 thousand years ago. But his benevolent spirit was believed to protect his followers from the storms of restless passions and the malevolent fates .This happened, though the venerable teacher's existence was supposed to cease to exist in the realm of Nirvana.
The night wore on , it struck my nerve when I heard the ceaseless howls of dogs in our neighbourhood. The strong wind began to brew , wooing the leaves of the trees near my house. And the sound of their rustles turned to be like the bellows of the ghosts who were struggling for the paths to their salvation. Suddenly, I heard someone groaning in pain on the ground below my house. I sweated profusely , mumbling the incantation as much as I could to elicit the protections from the Lord Buddha or the household spirit. I Daeng , my beloved dog, kept barking but then whimpered like it was terrified by the intruder. The groan stopped , but I heard something knocking against the wooden wall. I assumed that it was from the knuckle of that condescending ghost who yearned for a large space in our house. I was helpless ; waking my grandmother up would only rouse her wrath and contempt for me that I was a nutcase. However, my fear then was subdued as it dawned on me that those sounds were caused by the branches of the rain tree shaken by the wind. The eventual quietude of the night soothed me and let me drift into the blissful slumber.
When the sun rose , alas , its illumination was pitifully obscured by the thick clouds .My grandmother would perform the same ritual before the image of Lord Buddha again , but her prayer was so loud as if she were certain that the daylight was her actual refuge. Now she was gallant enough to visit my aunt who lived next door. It was already the late morning , I still lingered on my bed and played with my wooden toy, crafted by my dear uncle. All of a sudden, I smelled something peculiar from outside the window. It was neither fetid nor fragrant , but it horrified me. Perhaps it was the scent from the death awaiting me by lurking in the thick bushes or the tall trees.
However , I felt my impulsivity to set foot on the river with my same old fishing rod. My bravery appeared out of nowhere; I jumped from the stairs and kept running through the forlorn gardens and rice fields despite the fear of the death that was supposedly creeping behind me. The river was there with its currents rushing through the rocks , forever embracing them with its utter coldness and the vigour of mother nature. The shoal of fish was wallowing in the river and looked grateful to it which provided them food and joyous playground. My calf and my feet were caressed by the river and the green plants below like the gentle touches of a doting woman. I adroitly dipped the hook with bait from my fishing rod into the water , though this was probably the first time I was fishing without my fellows. I looked around and was delighted that the death couldn't find me in such a heavenly place.
Not too long that I managed to catch a fish , but I felt the warmness of its shaking body - the emblem of striving for living. I blushed and threw it away ; I had been fed up with the death ,even though this belonged to just a tiny creature. The wind scattered the clouds and let sunlight penetrate the river. The water around the stones covered by moss was sparkling like the tapestry of gold but its thread kept moving thanks to the eternal breezes. I in a flash felt like I was all alone in this river or the world. And my body seemingly no longer existed , just completely blending with the things around me.
All at once I saw something standing amidst the river not far from me. It was like a strange creature from another planet : tall and stalwart with a human skull as it hat. Its round eyes were extremely baleful. I abruptly knew that it was the Lord of Darkness who had furtively been pursuing me , and it was my turn to be his prey. I took a deep breath and thought about my grandmother , feeling so despondent not to bid farewell to her before this .But then the unholy spirit unexpectedly gave me the cordial smile and disappeared among the ray of sunlight.
I stared at the river and saw my own shadow. I felt I grew tremendously old. I now realized that ghosts or spirits were nothing, but the figments of imagination created by human's deepest fear of the death which was so absurd like the plague. But when the light of love and oneness with nature shone through , those disembodied beings would be thus chased away.
I heard the ancient song of billion years murmured from that river.