Each night having to wake up with the loud voice of the sorcerer reminding me," Don't forget why you had to get up from your grave," is an ordeal in itself. What could have gone wrong in my human lifetime that although a Buddhist I was in a grave and not turned to ashes in some crematorium. But anyway, as I was already brought forth in this fashion I guess I have to continue playing this role. So, for yet another night I graciously got up from my grave, it took huge effort on my part to gather my mutilated body to walk in search of preys the sorcerer instructed us to look out for. The curtains of yet another ghastly night was lifted and in tandem with my sound orchestra (don't forget the jackals, owls, eerie wind and all other sounds to create the atmosphere of a zombie wandering night) I set forth climbing the rocky cliff and venturing out towards human habitation. As I was passing through the small forest at the edge of the village, two dark figures greeted my sight. I almost screamed in fright but my reasoning power proved the better of me and I knew it was their role to scream at my presence and not the vice versa, but these two humans were too entwined in their romantic spree that they didn't notice my ugly presence there. Seeing them that way struck a chord somewhere in my heart and the truth of my past life returned tumbling in the twisted, maggot filled brain of mine.
I was an introvert village belle who was orphaned in the year her parents finally relented to the village headmaster's plea to send her to school albeit the fact that she was twelve years old. My disdain for mushrooms saved me that day but my dislike for mushroom turned to hatred as it took the lives of both the hands that blessed me. The promise of education and its fruit of success forgotten I grew up into a girl to get hooked up with a menpa who used to visit our village once every month. He was elegant looking in comparison to the village lads who walked in their stinking ghos, unkempt hair and lewd remarks ever ready at the sight of us-the female counterparts. His sparkling white coat took me to a trip in the wonderland of love- the secret meetings, his visit to my house at odd hours by the village standard. But I felt if I had ever lived my life it was when I was in his embrace. Although I was totally absorbed in his life I could never muster the courage to ask him to take me with him.
One day, after completing his usual monthly round he asked me to accompany him on his way back to town. My head spinning dizzily, I knew this was the moment I had been waiting for, so before setting off, I confided the secret to my best friend that finally I was going to the town to marry the man of my dreams and at the same time I made her swear to the oath of secrecy until I was gone for good. We walked; I went ahead of him so as to make our escape unnoticed by the villagers. We met near the rocky cliff which was quite far from my village. He made me sit down and I knew it was time he told me that I have to accompany him to town to clean his house, cook meals for him, weave ghos for him and bear his children. Instead there was a gush of tears from my eyes as he told me that he was already a happily married man and a father of three school-going kids. The reverie of beautiful life married to the man of my dreams smashed on that rocky cliff. There was one moment when I felt like going down on my knees and begging him to take me with him but as I gazed up he was already away in the next bend from where I knew he would never return. Tears made my return journey a foggy one and my bleeding heart made the journey even more difficult. The instance next, I found myself shrieking with a sinking heart.
The two lovers had heard me loud and clear and they left their heavenly abode of love and fled the scene without even trying to comprehend who shrieked in that blindness of the night. I looked at my dilapidated body and knew I had fallen from that cliff and died while my best friend had already told my village people that I had gone with the menpa, so that means no body felt the need of cremating me and conducting my final rites. Okay, so that's why I roam around as a zombie.
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