The Skeleton

(This short story by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore is not a scary story really; in fact, it starts out as a humorous story till the dark side unravels.)

The room, adjacent to the one where we three childhood friends slept, had a human skeleton hanging from the wall. The bones made a rattling sound when the breeze blew during the night. In the daytime, we had to study the structure of the bones. In those days we were given lessons in literature by a teacher, while a student from the Campbell Medical School taught us osteology. Our guardians wished that we should become proficient in all branches of knowledge. It would be futile to explain to people who know us as to how successful we have been in fulfilling that wish, and to those who do not know us, it would be better if things remain unsaid.

Many years have passed since then. In the meanwhile, the skeleton has disappeared from the room and so has all knowledge of osteology from our heads. No amount of investigations can reveal where they have gone.

A few days ago, owing to shortage of space in the house, I had to sleep in that room in the night. Unaccustomed to sleeping anywhere else other than in my own room, sleep eluded me and I lay tossing and turning on the bed even as the gongs of the chiming clock in the nearby church sounded all the hours of the night. Just then the oil lamp that was burning and had been flickering for the past five minutes, went off abruptly. There had been a few unfortunate incidents in my house lately and, so, when the lamp went off suddenly, the thought of death came instinctively to my mind. I reflected that for nature it was the same thing whether a lamp gets extinguished late in the night and merges into the ever-pervading darkness, or whether the flames of life of human beings are snuffed out suddenly, sometimes in the daytime and sometimes in the night.

The recollection of the skeleton came to my mind. I tried to imagine what the person, whose skeleton it was, must have been like in life. I suddenly felt as if some conscious being was moving around the mosquito net while tapping on the walls of the room; I could hear the sound of breathing. It was as if the conscious being was searching for something but could not find it and, so, was going round and round looking for it. I realized that this was my imagination caused by a tired mind due to sleeplessness; it was the throbbing of the blood rushing to my head which sounded like footsteps. Yet, a shiver ran through my body. "Who is it?" I spoke out in order to dispel my illusory fright. The footsteps approached the bed and stopped; I heard a reply, "It is me; I have come in search of my skeleton."

I thought it was ridiculous to be scared of the creation of my own imagination. Holding my bolster firmly and speaking in a casual manner as if talking to a person with whom I had a long acquaintance, I said, "That's a very good task you have undertaken at such an hour. But what need do you have of the skeleton now?"

The reply came from very close to the mosquito net, "What do you say! My heart was encased in that skeleton; all the 26 years of my youth blossomed around it. Should I not crave to see it just once?"

"That is true. Fine, you look around for your skeleton while I try to get some sleep," I replied.

The voice said, "Are you alone? Then, let me sit for a while; we can talk for some time. I used to talk with people 35 years ago; but for the last 35 years I have only spoken to the wind in the cemetery. Today, once again, I will sit by your side and talk like a human being."

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