When expectations meet reality, most of our dreams are shattered. The vision that lay in front of me was definitely not up to my expectations. It wasn’t any urban park that I had come to; I had come to a burial ground. Is this burial ground my destiny? Even the thoughts scared the hell out of me. Maybe it was time to stop all the madness, but somehow the heart didn’t seem to agree to that. I hated myself more than ever for doing all this. But I had started an expedition and there was no way I could leave everything in a mystery. I had to finish what I had started, even if it meant a war against the millions of ghosts.731Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9Z76iDW0Z1
And that was how I went inside a cemetery. When I entered the place, I started having flashbacks. The flashbacks were from the dream I had the former night. My brain signalled me to stop. When I stood still, my brain started drawing pictures from my dream. In my subconscious state, the smartest organ started comparing the drawn pictures to the present cemetery. Colourful pictures from my dream were placed on the left side and the present black and white cemetery was in the right. Initially, there wasn’t much similarity, but as soon as my brain started playing jigsaw puzzles with the pictures, things started to make sense. My neurons immediately created an imaginary realm where they placed the black and white picture from the right hand side of my brain. They started working smartly on the placed picture of the graveyard. The broken door from the picture was fixed and made alive. The debris and the dried leaves were cleared from the track. All the burials were removed, and the wandering spirits were sent back to heaven or hell based on their deeds. The fallen trees were planted back along with their fruits and flowers. The grasses were made greener all over the place. After making a lot of similar adjustments, the people were positioned in the picture. When that picture was assigned back to its original position, it looked similar to the one in left hand side.731Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr8J0FH75bI
I wondered what I could have done if my brain was a little less intelligent. Its intelligence made the reality as clear as crystal to me. The graveyard was, once upon a time, a park—a park filled with happy people. I reflected upon the potential causes of turning it into a tomb factory. I could find none, so I moved ahead with my endeavour. I wandered for a long time around the park paying attention to every minute detail. I was hoping to find some clues for my next step. But the tides didn’t seem to be in my favour that day. I sat on a nearby bench hopelessly. I didn’t have anything else left to do, so I started reading the inscriptions on the gravestones. Some died young, some died old, but everyone seemed to be a good fella over there. They were loving father, great mother, caring husband, obedient son, faithful wife, and wonderful buddies. I was thinking how their death would have affected their loved ones. The ones who died early would have left a tragic impact on their families. Some families might have moved on while some might still be grieving. I was really moved to emotions while reading all these when one of the inscriptions really caught my eye. It was the date on that particular tombstone—the date was my birthday. My eyes were fixed on that grave, my mind was blocked, and I felt a quick shiver inside my body. I didn’t know what to make out of that subtle coincidence. Before I could draw any conclusion, my attention was moved to another grave beside the previous one. It was of his wife; she had died exactly two and a half years after him. Mr. & Mrs. Parkinson were sleeping permanently in their coffin and their discovery had scared the shit out of me.731Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8b5mMLOkB9
When the currents of strongest fear run on the nervous system, brain and heart are left pretty much paralysed. It perfectly applied to my situation there. My rear was set on fire, and I was running at the speed of a cheetah. However, the cheetahs aren’t as easily asphyxiated as I was. I had to stop to breathe as I wasn’t getting enough oxygen for my body. For a moment, I thought I would be dropped dead, but a second later I sensed that the place I had stopped was the same neighbourhood where I was wandering in the beginning. It was almost the similar situation for me as Shakespeare had described, “cut the head off and then hack the limbs.” I felt pity for myself; I had to regain consciousness as I was scared as hell. I needed a sudden rush of adrenaline in my body. I don’t know what kept motivating me, but I took courage and started running again. I didn’t stop until I reached my apartment. Then, I just fell off on my floor. I wished I could die as my body had given up, but my mind was just not willing to give up.731Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ63cQR21znm
I lay senseless on the floor for a very long period of time. As I stayed motionless, all the current events were rotating sequentially inside my head. Despite continuous struggle, it was hard to deduce anything from the events. Absence of the facts at that point of time gave result to the limitless possibilities. It might be possible that all those events were a sheer coincidence, but a logical person like me would never agree to that. Given the condition, there wasn’t any choice left for me other than to dig into the truth. I planned to start the digging the next day. In the meantime, my brain forced a series of obvious questions to me. Was I Mr. Parkinson in my previous birth? If Mr. Parkinson is reborn as me, is it possible that Mrs. Parkinson is reborn too? Would she also be looking for Mrs. Parkinson the way I was looking for Mr. Parkinson? Is it probable that we might end up meeting each other? The last question did bring a spark in my eyes. My hopes were high again. I started believing that my girl was out there somewhere whom I needed to find. I didn’t know how she might look. I didn’t know when and where I would see her. I didn’t know anything about her beliefs. I had no idea if she even existed, and if she did, would she be available. The confusing confusions tried to weaken me a lot, but the courage of my convictions could not be shaken.
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