ONE IMAGE, ONE STORY

There are many such places in the world where no one comes or goes, or very few people come and go. Such places are all over the earth, and I hope that there must be one such place near your house too.

  
I sit in what people believe is a haunted park at the other end of my colony, where people do not go because they are afraid to come here. It is believed that souls come here even during day time. But I come here every day and sit on this bench that is close to a graveyard and read a book or write my diary. I've been doing this for the last fifty years ever since my girlfriend left and married a rich man.

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After all, there is a place like a storeroom in your house that has to be visited once or twice a year or month. Such a place definitely exists everywhere. Such places have their own charm. Many times, people visit these places because it is forbidden to go there.

For example, once I went to an acacia forest at night, a little far from my ancestors' house in my old city. I didn't see any ghosts there, but there was so much silence, so much emptiness, and so much peace in that place that I ran away from it in fear. Sometimes too much peace is scary, isn't it?

After the incident that day, my definition of a ghost changed. If I had met someone there who had gone there out of curiosity like me, he would have become my friend. But every time people don't go to such places, that's why we don't make friends in such places, and now I don't even live in my native town.

However, I still manage to go to places few people go, or people who somehow think like me. I think the songs used in the book I am reading are like a key to a time portal for people like us. If we listen to that song again, we immediately return to that era. Some songs in this collection might have been heard only by those who are afraid of ghosts.

A few days ago, I was listening to a YouTube video of one such song. The name of the song is "Hide and Seek". I left a comment there too. When you feel alone, listen to this song, and you will never feel alone again. But there were not many comments there either. I think the comment box in this video is also one of those places where very few people go. But I leave my mark in such places, whatever the mark so that people know that I have visited that place. So I left a comment on that video's comment box.

It is a mystical song in a very sweet voice. I would probably be the only Indian in this video's comment box. Next time someone else like me listens to that song, they will come to know that there was another Indian who listened to such a ghostly love song and was not afraid of them. Maybe he would want to be friends with me.

The last time I had such a friendship with a person, I met him at one of the most haunted places in my ancestral city. He was very surprised to see what I was doing there. I was also surprised to see him. Probably the reason for that friendship between us was because of that shock we both felt seeing each other in that only place. He casually told me that his girlfriend had told him about this place. He also told that for the first time, his girlfriend had called him to this place.

His girlfriend had been missing for many years, so he had come there that day to find her at that place. Later, he told me that his girlfriend was also there, but a little below the ground. He told me she was right there in a graveyard, 100 meters away from where we were sitting at that time.

He then asked me, "What are you doing here?"

I said, "My girlfriend used to bring me here too, but that was about 50 years ago."

"Where is she now?"

I smiled at him and said, "In the pages of my diary because she now lives with her husband in a faraway land."

That day, when I was returning from there, I had done a good deed. I went with him to his girlfriend's grave and offered flowers.

Now I always go and sit at places where very few people go or no one goes at all. Sometimes I feel that even if such places were not haunted before I visited them, they would become haunted because people like me came and sat there without any purpose.

This story is in response to -

NEW CONTEST!! "One image, one story" by @franyeligonzalez

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