Sumita Dutta writes

THE EARBUD CHRONICLES

1. VANISHED

Dainagri: Police and government officials admit their miserable failure to dispense justice. Angry protesters, waving placards and demanding answers, have besieged the Town Hall through the week. Our elected leaders hang their heads in shame. They have no answers, only empty promises. Meanwhile, there is no relief in sight for the parents of the dead children. 

During the day, the town plods through the motions of life; at night, folks shutter their doors and windows tight and remain indoors. It hadn’t always been like this. Residents tearfully recall laughter, music and the aroma of delicious food wafting into the streets. The houses, clustered together, had had an aura of friendliness, ever ready to lend a helping hand at a low call. Well-swept narrow lanes weaved through the community. Colourful bougainvillea, fragrant jasmine, and a multitude of flowering trees blissfully shaded travellers from the scorching Indian sun. Birdcalls and shrieks of laughing children were the norm around any corner.

These days the houses seem to be huddling, almost cowering in fear. The cool shady lanes are gloomy and sinister. Flowers wither before blooming and even the leaves, the small patches of grass, are yellow and shrivelled. Birds have deserted the town completely. Cows are emaciated, producing little milk. Street dogs look starved and feral. Even the ochre sun looks jaundiced, moving across a bilious sky.

Once famed for its quaint beauty, the unsolved deaths have shrouded this town in despair. For three consecutive times in the past two months, like clockwork on new moon nights, first one little girl then two young boys, vanished from their beds. Morning always found the intact body lying inside the ruins of the deserted hospital complex.

To pacify public outrage and prevent pandemic fear, politicians are working overtime -- at their speeches. Promising instant action, they haven’t even been able to demolish the derelict hospital building. After the police investigated it high and low, desperately and fruitlessly searching for clues, orders arrived to flatten and clear the lot. The demolishers stormed in but were halted in their tracks when the ground crumbled and sank beneath the bulldozers. Geologist and surveyors, appearing at the scene, suddenly discovered evidence of seismic activity underground. They have demarcated the area as protected zone.

Cause of death remains a complete mystery. How can three perfectly healthy children’s heart suddenly stop beating? Who took them out of their homes? The police claim that the only clues existing are some earbuds -- found on the pillow of each child who died. Highly placed sources inform us that the detectives have wracked their brains until they are pulling out their own hair in great tufts. The ear-bud clue seems to lead no-where…

*

“Ha, at last! They’ve got back the report from the DNA testing on the earbuds,” exclaimed Laxmi, her thin body almost hidden deep under the newspaper.

“These rookie journalists! All they care for is sensationalism.” Alka shook her head at the lurid headlines on her spread. She reached for her pad and pencil, itching to draw the scene described in the newspaper article. “Well, have they got any leads?” Bold strokes appeared under her clever fingers, depicting police officers pulling out tufts of their own hair in frustration. She smirked.

“Only that the earbuds were produced from reused cotton. They are questioning all street vendors who sell earbuds!” Laxmi put away the newspaper with disgust. Her hands were soon busy with the innards of a CPU. These parallel resistors connect to those transistors, condenser here and..., she muttered. She was building a computer to help humans and ghosts communicate.

Ali was the oldest child in the room. Inordinately proud of his thick hair, he had fashioned it like Mahender Singh Dhoni’s long locks. He loved the cricketer and wouldn’t cut his hair despite all the teasing the style invited. He tidied the room, waiting...

Gopal came in with a tray piled high with finger-chips and bowls of dipping sauce. “Hot crispy fries and sauce that’s just right. Tickle your taste buds guys, dig in.” He presented the dishes with great flair and briskly took his seat. Everybody immediately brought their chairs to the table.

“Yummy, I love these.” Rotund Naveen grabbed a fistful. He was the youngest; the others fondly watched him eat first. They followed, grimly determined on their course of action. Swirling the fries in the drippy sauce, they made quick work of it and sat back ready for the next step of the ritual.

Time was ripe. The moonless night allied with a thick fog, to envelope the town in darkness. Residents slumbered as if comatose. A weird mist swirled around the watchful police and news-telecasting crews. Infrared cameras recorded them nodding off right where they stood. Not even an earthquake could have woken them.

Indicating they should join hands, Ali led the chanting. Their clasped hands resting on the table, the five children closed their eyes, concentrating on the name they had chosen. Verses flowed from cold lips; the rhythmic chanting rose and fell, echoed off white walls and ceiling then dropped to a hushed whisper. A chill spread along the room, frosting the steel surgical table where they sat. Broken panes on the medicine cabinet glazed and cracked. The tiled walls chilled, droplets of moisture bedewing them, streaming down in rivulets of tears. Silvery wetness streaked the children’s faces as they lost themselves in the power of thought. A single blue ear-bud rose from the centre of the table and wafted out through the shattered window.

Sumita Dutta writes

THE EARBUD CHRONICLES (cont.)

 

Far across town, in the Inspector General’s house, little Bela got out of bed, leaving behind a blue ear-bud on her pillow. As the clock tower, in the central square, tolled the midnight hour, she slipped latches and unlocked bolts fixed by her cautious father on their front door. She moved down the street silently, her feet apparently gliding a few inches above the dusty road, white nightgown trailing behind like a ghostly train in the pitch-blackness. She soon reached the ruins of the deserted hospital. 

At her approach, the gates hanging lopsidedly shut, suddenly creaked, and tried to part. The large sealed lock that the police had optimistically placed, trembled, shattered, and joined the shards of its brethren on the barren earth. The rusted chain binding the gates, slithering like a live snake, unravelled. The gates swung open on creaking hinges. In a flash, she was across the littered yard and inside the crumbling ruin. Past corridors -- dusty, dead-leaves strewn, its walls ­pockmarked, mildewed, sagging, and in places completely collapsed ­-- she moved with regal calmness until she came to the door of the Operation Theatre, where the five children waited. The door opened. She woke up.

Her face scrunched in a rictus of fear; she opened her mouth to scream, but no sound emerged. She barely saw the five children rising to welcome her. Petrified, her gaze locked on the horrific sight of men and women hanging from the wall in chains. Tattered remnants of uniforms -- doctors and nurses -- hung in shreds from their emaciated bodies. They were bleeding, covered with putrid sores; their ripped open abdominal cavities showed missing organs. They writhed in their restrains, screamed and shrieked, cursed and cried out their endless pain to a deaf world.

Bela’s eyes closed in a dead faint. The five ran to her, embraced her, tried to explain, to comfort, but to no avail. At their touch, her body shuddered and her innocent soul left the Earth to ascend to a heavenly abode. 

“We must not touch them. We can’t touch them. I told you we should not touch them,” Ali reiterated in despair.

“Not another child. Oh Bela, don’t die, come back to us. We need you,” cried Naveen disconsolate.

“Oh Bela, Bela. We are so sorry we called you, but what are we to do?” wailed Laxmi, rocking the fragile little body in her arms. Gopal and Alka chaffed her hands, but it was far too late.

*

A fortnight later, on the subsequent new moon night, the five doggedly arrayed themselves around the surgical table again. Crunching the doctors’ fried fingers dipped in the nurses’ blood -- a diet sourced from those who had caused their own deaths -- enabled them to gather the strength to summon a live human being. As children themselves, and incomplete at that, their powers were severely limited. It would have been so much easier if they could have informed an adult human. These doctors, abetted by their nurses, had kidnapped them from their villages, and killed them to sell their organs to the highest bidder. They had to be exposed. People needed to learn that eternal agony awaited such villains.

Indeed, such a crime, perpetrated by people trusted and respected above all in society, deserved a fate beyond the scope of mortals. The children’s heartbroken parents still waited and hoped their child would one-day return home. They were poor; no one had helped them trace their lost child. They did not know their child was already dead -- slaughtered by unscrupulous human monsters for monetary gain. 

However, the children had avenged their own deaths. They had brought the hospital crumbling to its knees and the heinous murderers, to fitting justice. Once people understood retribution lasts endlessly beyond death, the five could ascend to heaven.

They had tried to lead the police, through the clue of the earbuds, to the garbage dump behind the hospital. The rag pickers collected the cotton from there, washed and reused them in the earbuds -- a dangerously unhealthy practice that needed to stop.

Incriminating evidence was in that dump, but the detectives were yet to solve the mystery of the earbuds. Although they had searched the interiors and grounds of the hospital for clues, they had avoided the garbage dump that lay just beyond the walls. Fear of malignant germs festering from hospital-waste, had kept them away. There, covered under heaps of rubbish, lay buried the looted bodies of Ali, Laxmi, Gopal, Alka and little Naveen.

Only an innocent child can witness the vision of the after world on new moon nights. The determined five have no other option but to keep on trying – until they find someone brave enough to witness the misery in that room and not die of fright. One who will be able to describe everything they see, direct the authorities to the gruesome evidence, and bring closure for their parents. Only then will the children’s ghosts be free to move on; only then will the town regain its health. 

Now, gutsy reader, you are ready to hear the complete truth. This story tested your mettle. You have proved your valour by reading through to the very end. You are the one who can help these children. You will courageously venture forth when a blue earbud lands on your pillow tonight.

Sumita Dutta writes

THE EARBUD CHRONICLES 


2. THE VENGEFUL FIVE
 

“Make way, make way, hot crunchy finger-chips on the way,” sang rotund little Varun. He backed in through the door with a large tray piled high with their favourite fries. 

“Yummmm…that smells delicious,” chirped Alisha, skipping to the table. 

“And here’s the sauce,” Poonam placed the bowl with a flourish. “OK now, everybody, gather around. The midnight hour is tolling and time is ripe. Let’s begin our party!” She was the eldest by a whole year and made sure the others followed her lead.

“Where’s the magic earbud?” Prashant demanded impatiently. 

Sri burst through the door panting, “Here.. here. The tip is dripping fresh. Let’s begin.” 

During the day the town hummed and buzzed with life but at night it was a perfect haunt of ghosts. The innocents always slept blissfully though, while the guilty shuttered their doors and windows tight and cowered indoors. The little town, quickly rising to infamy because of its ghosts, was the worst on moonless nights. Clouds shrouded the starlight and as the clock tower in the central square tolled signifying midnight, street dogs always set up a peculiar unearthly howl. The town children huddling under their bed-sheets, before they fell into peaceful sleep, often recognised the howls of ghouls in pain. Ghost children, on the other hand, knew that such nights were perfect for their job -- Child Calling.

Having polished off the tray of fried fingers, a necessary diet to process an important ingredient for their potion -- Varun spitting out a stubborn nail that refused to be masticated -- they were ready and assembled around the steel surgical table in the middle of the room. Sri placed the earbud reverently on the table and they raised their arms and stood ready. At the count of six, they started. Clap, swing arms, a half turn to slap their neighbour’s palm, back, clap, turn the other way… At the same time they chanted:

Lizard stools and tadpole slime,

Mix in villain’s blood with sprig of thyme;

Rat droppings and pig’s tail hair,

Burst balloon from a children’s fair;

Temper with the spice of mice,

Cool it smart with a smelly fart!

Just a drop on the ear-bud’s tip

Will knot a villain in our whip.

Now Aditya, do jump out of bed

You’ve been chosen to avenge the dead.

As they chanted, and hopped and skipped and swung round the surgical table, the rhythmic clapping of their hands seemed to cause the sky to rumble and the Earth tremble. A cool breeze rose in the room, picked up the earbud and carried it out through the broken panes of the large plate window. The earbud floated through the crumbling corridors of the ruined hospital, a site of the heinous crime of organ smuggling it was rumoured. A trail of rustling dead leaves followed its progress out of the hospital until it disappeared into the night sky.

Across town, ten years old Aditya, jumped out of bed. A blue earbud seemed in a tearing hurry to shove itself up his nose if he did not act sharp. Plucking it out of the air, Aditya was immediately aware of the course of action required. He sprinted out of his house to the ramshackle cottage on the corner of the street. It stood in a sea of stinky garbage, rusty junk and over-grown thorny shrubs. The children of the neighbourhood always avoided this house and its lone resident, a pot-bellied giant of a man.

Tonight, Aditya did not think twice as he ran up to the door and hammered until it was opened in a fearful rage. To be woken up in the middle of the night by a small kid! But before the angry man could begin to bawl him out, Aditya shoved the drippy end of the earbud into the fat gut in front of his face. Then with a quick about-turn of his heel, he returned to his bed to dream of deeds of great valour in which he saves the world. 

At the other end of the earbud, though, it wasn’t at all a pleasant sight. A spiny whip had materialised out of the earbud and lashed itself painfully tight around the man. He opened his mouth and shrieked in pain, but a swift wind carried it away, leaving undisturbed all innocents’ slumber. The whip dragged him out of the house, thrashing and wrestling and screaming, through the junk in the yard and down the gravelly road, to the ruins of the old hospital. There the five ghostly avenging angels awaited, ready with fitting retribution. They were God’s helpers, sent to rid the world of crime. The man they had trapped tonight was an organ smuggler.