Laughter in Darkness
A suspense, romantic and psychological thriller
By
Kotra Siva Rama Krishna
Neeraja felt as if all the energy in her body was drained as soon as Aravind went out of that room. It was just like suddenly realization came into her. She could not understand how she behaved like that! If that Aravind was not a gentleman, what would have happened? how could she lower that much in her life?
It was true that she was attracted towards Aravind as soon as she saw him. That attraction like that continued even after she knew he was married and has a son also. But she was not that much perverted to develop desire on a married person. But suddenly she felt like that, that uncontrollable urge! She many a time felt that uncontrollable urge but never stooped that lower! What made her behave like that?
Then she remembered what Aravind said just before going out of that room. There was evil paranormal here. Yes, what he has said was absolutely true. Unless something paranormal involved, she never would have behaved like that. She covered her face with both of her hands just like Aravind before. She was just not weeping like him then.
“Are you worrying for anything Neeraja?”
Neeraja first felt the touch of Rose’s right hand on her left shoulder and then heard her voice. She opened her eyes, looked into the face of Rose and hissed heavily.
“Of course no. I am just thinking in myself.” Neeraja said. Then she adjusted herself in the chair for more comfort. “Are you thinking that there is really paranormal and evil in the world Rose?” leaning back in the chair and looking into her face, Neeraja asked Rose after few seconds pause.
“I think I said to you before.” Rose sighed. “I cannot completely disbelieve paranormal Neeraja. I have such experiences in my life.”
“Then tell me, are you thinking that there is something paranormal here?” still keeping Rose’s face in her gaze, Neeraja asked her.
Rose clipped her lip between her teeth frames and released it slowly. “Difficult to say. I have not yet come to an opinion.” She paused for a moment and said again. “There must be some reason for your suddenly asking this thing.”
“Think about my experience and your experience in the bathroom Rose. Unless there is something paranormal here, why would have felt like that there?” knitting her brows together, Neeraja asked her.
“Oh, God! You made me convinced that there is no paranormal here and that was all just hallucination. Now you are trying to make me believe in some other way.” With a confusing expression in her face, Rose said.
“Because of the experiences I am having here so far, I am forced to believe in paranormal. I became helpless.” Neeraja got off from the chair and said.
“Alright dear. First let me know what experience you did have here. Then we shall see whether it was because of some paranormal or not.” Rose invited her to say.
“No, I cannot say about it to anyone.” Neeraja’s cheeks were blushed with shame remembering that incident.
“Were you also raped by a ghost like me? But I have told about that to you without any hesitation?” Rose knitted her brows together.
“No. It was not rape……………but I cannot say about that to you.” Neeraja’s cheeks were still very much red.
“Alright, alright. There is no problem. Come and sit first.” Rose hold Neerajas’ right arm with her right hand and made her slumped in her chair again. “I believe in paranormal but I don’t believe every trivial nonsense as paranormal. For the present forget about it. It seems that you have a discussion with that Vinod. What that was?”
“I have asked him about my mother. He was very much intimated with my mother while she was in mild ward of Black Ant Mental Care. He told me many a thing about her.” Leaned back in the chair and hissing out heavily Neeraja said.
“Whenever I think about your mom, I feel very bad Neeraja. Sometimes I feel that I did a mistake in treating her.” There came a grim expression on the face of Rose.
“It was not at all so Rose, there was no mistake of you in that.” Neeraja took Rose’s right hand into her hands and squeezed it. “I was there and I saw. You treated her in the best way possible. No one could do more than that. But she has become beyond control. That madness….” Neeraja’s eyes became wet suddenly as the tears were flowing down “if for any external reason it would have been cured. But it was inherent in her. She was borne mad. That was not curable.”
“Oh, Neeraja don’t become emotional” Rose released her hand from Neeraja’s hands and wiped the tears that were flowing down on the cheeks of Neeraja. “We have to understand certain things in our lives and accept them. There is no other way at all.”
“Alright, alright. I am sorry.” Neeraja laughed and adjusted herself more in her chair. “Anyhow you are always a surprising thing to me Rose. You are such a successful and reputed psychiatrist but sometimes feel fear and tension just like anyone else.”
“That is just because Neeraja we are all first ordinary human beings and then anything else. However much successful we may become in our professions, we cannot get rid of our natural instincts, our fears and our emotions. Yes, sometimes I behave even worse than an ordinary woman when it comes to my own family members. Even I am an experienced and skilled psychiatrist, I cannot understand the problems of my family members as I understood the problems of other people. On some occasions I felt very much emotional and hysterical while my daughter was suffering from split-personality. In fact in some occasions I cannot cope with the situations as my husband Williams do.” Rose said and adjusted herself in her chair for more comfort.
“Williams is really very handsome person! He is as much handsome as you are beautiful!” Neeraja involuntarily remembered what she has heard from Vinod. It was very difficult to think that Williams suffered from madness at one time.
“You don’t know a very important piece of information about my husband. He has been joined in our hospital as a mental patient. He was that much mad then just remained staring ahead. He has seen something odd in their old house and turned mad like that. He was entrusted to me.” Rose said.
“Then you did wonders! You cured him wonderfully! What’s more here is this beautiful Rose has fallen in love with that Williams. You both became man and wife later.” Neeraja smiled and said.
“How…how did you come to know about this?” Rose knitted her brows together.
“Is it is difficult to guess? I know about your success rate. Cannot I understand when you both have fallen in love?”
“You are right of course.” Rose nodded her head. “But our life afterwards has not gone as smooth as you are thinking about it. Even after being cured from mild madness also, Williams suffered from psychological disturbances. I have to worry myself a lot to make him normal in all respects. I need to sacrifice my career a long time for the welfare of my husband.”
“My god! I don’t know about it.” there was surprise in the face of Neeraja.
“But it paid the dividends. My husband family has huge properties and my husband and I also shared most of them. My husband’s sister Jasmine is indeed very good and she likes me a lot and it is vice versa.” Rose said.
“It is impossible to anyone not to like you. You are such a sweet woman!” Neeraja said.
“Oh, don’t praise me too much.” Rose said. Rose was about to say something then but Emily came into that room and disturbed them.
“Don’t you both come downstairs at all?” she asked them angrily.
“It is not even half an hour that I came here. Anyhow what is the problem to you wherever we may be? You have those both kids with you for your time-pass.” Rose asked her
“Their dads came and took them from me.” Emily said. “I have been left with no time-pass.”
“Have not you found anything worth reading or seeing in my smart phone?”
“I just don’t have the mood to read the books. And there is no internet here to see the videos.” Emily said.
“Alright. Just sit with us for some more time then we go downstairs.” Rose said.
Then Emily went near to the bed and laid herself on it while Rose and Neeraja put themselves into talking again.
&&&
“I just want to take rest. I am going into my room.” Rajesh said so and went into their room leaving Vinod all alone in the verandah.
Vinod leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. Suddenly he felt very much uneasy and disturbed. Despite being a psychologist why sometimes he was feeling like that after entering into this house he could not understand. How Rajesh has got a mood to repair and renovate this house for further use he could not understand but Vinod was feeling very much odd and sinister in this house. The climate, the upstairs and everything in this house was appearing ominous to him. Was really something wrong with this house he could not understand.
Here, in this very place, six people were murdered! It might have taken a very long time back but thinking about that was making him very much uneasy. How that Nagaraju could kill that heartlessly that many people! If he loved grandma that much, how could he want to kill her? He was asking the questions to himself.
That old woman was very much odd, strange and surprising! He could not think whether he was fortunate or unfortunate that he had seen her while she was alive. Even she was alive at that time, she was just like dead, all the time laid on the bed without even opening her eyes. There was a strange and fearsome expression in her face even in that sleeping position also. It was just like that she knew everything.
But the thing Ratnam said, that Sunanda said in séance, that old woman’s body was put to fire while she was alive, making him feel lot and lot uneasy. She was just like all the time when she has been declared as dead by Malati and Rajesh. He also examined her and as far as he could say, she was dead. But was she dead or were they mistakenly decided and declared her as dead? As Rajesh feeling burdensome to stay and look after her, declared her like that? Put fire to her body while she was alive?
‘My god!’ he hissed out heavily and leaned back in his chair. He heard the sound of footsteps and perched his head up.
“What you are thinking in yourself uncle?” It was Anand.
“Nothing. I am just trying to relax myself.” Vinod laughed and said.
“Is it is not better that you do it on the upstairs then?” Anand said “There are beds in the upstairs rooms to lay your back.”
“May be you are right. I have tried to relax myself on the bed in the first room upstairs but I could not.” Vinod got off from the chair. “I go and try my luck there.”
As Vinod was going towards the staircase, Rose, Emily and Neeraja came down from the upstairs room. He gave way to them to go and they smiled at him while going into their room.
(I hope that you enjoyed upto here. I shall publish the next chapter as soon as possible. Please don’t forget to rate and review.)
