Siren

It was a dream, of course. That much I knew long before the dash through the theater, long before leaving the party, long before things went from strange and interesting to all-out screamathon. It was a good-ol' fashioned dream... Except it was also one of those things that pop into your head and then refuse to leave - like an unbidden guest standing at your doorstep one fine midsummer morning, all set on gracing you with his presence until Diwali at least.

There were two ways to deal with it - either let it pick at the insides of my skull until it dissolved (which would take an inordinate amount of time, given the complexity of the factors involved), or get it down on paper so I could mutilate it into gibberish and give up on it.

I chose the latter.
So this is the story of my dream.


It began on the stairwell of a multi-storey. I was fifteen again, going for tuitions to the home of an old lady who would smell like cabbage and jasmines on the edge of decay, and offer to turn us over to our parents at the slightest indiscretion. I knew all this from the chattering crowd of children walking around me; in the real world I hadn't been to any tuition classes till I turned eighteen.

I happen to be tall, but those kids barely reached my elbow. I would've thought they were much younger if it weren't for the identical sky-blue mathematics textbook we were all carrying.

I scanned the crowds for familiar faces. There weren't any. To make matters worse the kids all insisted on pushing me to the front; I found myself at the door of a house on the seventh floor, a crowd of tiny kids behind me, the whole tableau uncannily similar to the Pied Piper coming home after a long day at work.
I pressed the door bell.

A deep bass note reverberated through the floor. The kids stopped chattering and were still. I looked back and saw them all gazing up at me, tiny eyes reddish in the late evening.
The first pang of unease hit me then.
I tried to cut back through them but the door opened and a pair of hands dragged me in.


The lighting inside was no better than outside - strobe patterns lit up the walls at random intervals. I barely had a moment to wonder how they'd fitted a discotheque inside a 3BHK on the wrong side of the Yamuna - then the door banged shut behind me, and the bassline enveloped me completely.

The hands on my shoulders let off the pressure but did not let go. I waited for my eyes to adjust and then hazarded a look.

It was a girl.
The second pang of unease hit when my brain did a complete critical appraisal of her (the sort that I wouldn't dare try in daylight because I'd inevitably end up getting slapped) and still couldn't decide whether she was good-looking or not. She had pixie hair that actually reached her shoulders but looked much shorter. Her neck was long and slender, her height considerably more than that of the pipsqueaks who'd pushed me into the flat. She was wearing a little blue dress, and her features seemed vaguely familiar.

-Who are you? I mouthed the words but wasn't sure she'd heard.
-Does it matter? Her own voice was no more prominent. I was pleasantly surprised to discover I could read lips as well. She had a nice mouth.
-Where is this place?
She shrugged. One hand remained on my shoulder, the grip firm but comfortable. She motioned for me to follow her deeper into the house.

-I'm dreaming, aren't I?
I had just seen a couch set up in front of a flat screen with half a dozen guys crammed on top of each other, watching some sporting event or the other.
The entire party (along with assorted paraphernalia) was situated inside a single shower cubicle.

She grinned. It was a nice grin, but slightly wide. She made me a little nervous.
Her expression didn't change as she started to say something funny, but then her face suddenly went blank.

-What is it?
-We have to leave. Now.
-What? Why?
-Siren, she mouthed. I felt a slight chill. Not at the word, but the doomed expression that flitted across her face.
-Excuse me?
-Listen. Can't you hear it?
I stared at her for a moment and then realized I could. There was a faint wailing somewhere in the background.
-We have to leave, she repeated. Now.
-But we aren't exactly felons, are we?

In reply she gestured into the next bedroom down the line.
I peeked in.
A bunch of kids were sitting around an empty flower-vase, uttering weird incantations and making even weirder gestures. Just before I could burst out laughing, however, the vase... Glowed.

I continued to stare as a thin tendril of green fume emanated from the mouth of the vase and burrowed its way into the nose of the nearest kid. He fell back as if physically pushed; his eyes rolled up into his head.

The other kids continued their incantations; the vase was filled with green fumes now. I imagined I saw a spark of electricity somewhere in its depths.

-I don't want to be anywhere near them when the cops arrive, I admitted.
-Thought so. Come with me.
-Where are we going?

She came to a door that was, by my reckoning, the other bathroom.
-I'm not a big fan of sports!
-Shut up and get in.

She opened the door and pushed me


the smell of freshly cut grass
-What the hell was that?
-What?
-With the door and... Wait, where the hell are we?
-Could you stop emphasizing random words? It sounds kinda weird.

-Sorry.
We were on the streets of Connaught Place. It was long past midnight by the looks of it - the roads were all deserted, the stalls shut, not even a single smackhead dozing on the pavement. I looked down Janpath and noted how much it appeared like the setting for some post-apocalyptic movie.

-How did we get here?
-That's a good question.
-So are we safe here?
-Not really.
The sound of a car alarm from the other side of the circle. Red and blue lights reflected upon the pockmarked white pillars.

-Let's go.
She picked up a half-brick and hefted it through the glass shopfront of the nearest sportswear showroom.
Klaxons went off almost immediately.
-Wow. So you have a mad impulse and you Just Do It, huh?
-Save your product placements for the real world.

Her hand upon my forearm this time. Propelling me after her into the shop.
-Hey! There's glass and stuff here!
-Crybaby.
The door of a changing room with some actress in a sports-bra on it
-Do you think we could go to her place and
-Shut up!

The slightly stale smell of room freshener


-What the hell is that stench?
-We're in a public restroom.
-Ugh! And where exactly is
-See for yourself.

And I did.
We were at the one place in the city I'd sworn to never visit again. The river Yamuna flowed a few dozen yards down, oily with ghee and incense and practically carpeted by rotting flower petals. And in the marginal distance of a few dozen yards, five funeral pyres at different stages in the process of incineration.

-Nigambodh Ghaat.
-It's the last place they'd look for you.
-Who are they anyway?
-You'll probably find out soon enough.

The heat from the fires bathed my face. I found myself perilously close to a flashback that I desperately wanted to avoid. Except-
-Yep, they're aware of reverse psychology.

I hadn't seen or heard the sirens but I knew she wasn't lying. We ran down to the doors of the electric crematorium, which she kicked twice or thrice before the lock began to give way.
-Right now I'm actually kinda glad that my mind is blacking out the actual period of transit.
-Is that right?
-Yeah. I don't want to see the insides of this place. Can we please go somewhere a little less... Uninhabited?

-Are you sure?
The door finally fell open.
-I think so. I mean, what could possibly go


the inside of a theater blood red carpet pounding underfoot something black and white on the gigantic screen to our left and everybody to the right lit up by reflected blue light her hand warm but rough in mine pulling me to the side trying to block out the audience but too late to begin with
much too late

reptiles
all of them reptiles

lizards and snakes and iguanas somehow bundled into human clothing tongues lapping black in the semi darkness screeching and hissing and baring stained fangs and the stench of decay and offal in the air

-Over here, her voice right next to my ear the fear in it genuine but somehow disconnected from her person, and then a towering neon EXIT sign glowing red red red flicker red
only spot of colour in the room

the sound of her hands fumbling with the doorknob
one last look back into the theater
and the reptiles all of the slithery slimy reptiles wearing human clothes rising up in their seats
plastic toys and bleached balloons and windup animals in their hands
(claws not hands reptiles don't have hands)
shiny in the dim lighting somehow emitting light on their own and then

at the same moment as the door falling open

a hungry despicable babble of voices unruly chorus saying different words but the same thing all the same thing
-come here boy we have candy
-let me show you a magic trick
-ice cream trucks do you want ice cream jangling bells
-come a little closer and we can make this pencil disappear would you like that boy would you

and then out through the door with the neon EXIT sign and complete silence like unplugging a radio


-How long will this go on?
She looked like she hadn't heard. Then she cut me off halfway through asking again.
-Until we can outrun the sirens.
I strained my ears. She was right - there was still a mechanical screaming somewhere in the distance behind her. We were standing at a busy intersection five minutes from my own doorstep. I had no idea how we'd gotten here from the theater.

-We have to cross.
I took her hand, unbidden. She smiled a tight smile. Trucks blared past before us, burning rubber in both directions, glowing acid green and fire red in the sodium lighting. Her complexion looked orange. It suited her, somehow. The dress from the discotheque had been replaced by a plain shirt and skirt combination.

I let her lead me to the divider. I pretty much trusted her blindly by now. There was a paanwalla on the other side of the intersection. The roof of his stall smoldered, unseen and unnoticed. The air was heavy with the sweet scent of tobacco.

We crossed again. We were stepping past the tobacconist when the screaming in the distance turned into a continuous wail. Blue and red lights reappeared in the distance, a sense of inevitability embedded in the ruckus they were kicking up.

-Run, she said.
So we ran again - off the open road, into the half a mile stretch of barren fields and muddy paths that separated my locality from the nearest metro station.
I somehow knew we would never make it to the station.

Halfway down the empty stretch she suddenly turned right, towards the gate of a tiny enclosure marking off some faceless man's miserable holdings from the rest of the wasteland.

-Why are we
But I needn't have bothered
A gate is another type of door, after all


one of the narrow by-lanes on campus. Once again within walking distance of my college but on slightly unfamiliar territory.
-I am starting to detect a pattern here, I said.
She said nothing for the moment. Her breathing was becoming slightly ragged.
-We can stop for a bit, I suggested, although I knew we couldn't. I could hear a chorus of wails from the main road. We hadn't got a headstart.

There were doors all around us but they looked like they'd been bolted for decades.
-We're headed towards a
-Yes. Yes, I know.
Right on cue we turned the corner and came upon the brick wall we both knew about.

-Now what?
She said nothing. The catch in her breathing was more prominent.
The sirens came closer and closer. In a moment they'd turn the corner and light up the dead-end street.
She thrust something into my hand in the semi-dark.

-What is this? She didn't answer. It was too late.
The blue and red lights turned the corner. They threw her features into sharp relief. I realized with a jolt that she really was beautiful. All she'd needed to do was tie back her hair and change into a salwar-kameez.

A car door clanged open behind me. Somebody stepped out.
I didn't really care. I continued staring at her.
Something fluttered in my hand. I looked down.

It was a single black feather, the sort you'd see on a crow or a raven.
I looked back at her and saw that she was crying.

A fat red drop gathered at the corner of her eye and trickled down, leaving a shiny trail that was too bright and viscous to be anything but blood.
I let go of the feather. I turned to face the coppers
(pigs they call 'em pigs)
the front grills of the cars suspiciously like chrome-plated jaws
(they steal eggs and suck goats dry)
and then, at long last, a chance to look at my tormentors proper


I awoke screaming.

"Baby! What is it?"
I turned to the right. She lay in the bed beside me, on the soft downy mattress that was the most comfortable surface I'd ever slept on (even though I seemed to have nightmares with a sickly regularity whenever I slept on it).
My parents' old bedroom. My parents' old bed.

The only light came from a dim green zero-watt nightbulb, but I could see the silhouette of her nightgown, the way her hair was falling across her forehead.
I knew her, in this light. It seemed impossible not to. My struggle to identify her in the dreamworld felt strangely disconcerting now - this was the woman I loved.

I spoke her name out loud.
She said mine, the pronunciation flawless but slightly muffled. I ran my fingers though her hair, tucking rogue strands behind her ear.
She pulled me closer.

I didn't need to tell her what was wrong. She didn't really care. Her sole interest was getting my breathing back in check, to calm me down so we could go back to sleep. I felt the smoothness of her skin against mine, slightly cool compared to my own feverish pallor, and on an impulse I reached out and kissed her.

She was motionless for a moment before she reciprocated. Her mouth opened, soft and pliant.
I finally knew why she'd been having difficulties pronouncing my name.
She had the wrong number of teeth.

Too many, in fact. Too many teeth to fit into a human mouth. Fifty, a hundred, two thousand, serrated needles
(hypodermic)
crammed into that impossibly lovely mouth. She gave me a moment to explore, her tongue thin and scaly against mine, and then the teeth clenched shut on my tongue.

There was no pain. Some sort of toxin in the venom, I guessed.
Besides, she'd only done it so she could establish her grip proper. She wouldn't hurt me unneccessarily.

Things finally made sense. The word siren had multiple connotations, didn't it?
She pinned me upon the bed, her mouth now grey and elongated upon mine, and the zero-watt bulb was hidden as she finally stretched her wings, the ones she'd been hiding all along.
They were the jet black wings of a raven.

Feathers flew away in torrents around her. She raised her hands and I saw her nails, long and luminous and sharp enough for the tips to taper off into nothing.
The glow vanished as she plunged both her hands into my chest - and this time there was pain, tremendous and horrible and unimaginable. I tried to scream before remembering my mouth was otherwise occupied.

Her rough cheeks squirmed against mine. I realized she was smiling. There was a wrenching as her mouth left mine, and I could finally feel the inside of my head again.
Whatever was left of it, anyway.

She spat something fleshy and rubbery off the bed. Then the hands widened the gap between each other, like an excited kid opening a window on the first day of his holidays, and she cackled in triumph as she saw what she wanted.

There was another wrenching but this one was too big to respond to.
My senses began to fade away, and the last thing I saw was the creature sitting on my chest, wingspan almost as big as the width of the room, holding my heart up so it could be the last thing I saw.


I woke up for real and counted to ten to keep from screaming. I needn't have bothered - the urge was too halfhearted to be a problem. I'd already had my chance to test my lungs. And I'd taken it.

After the counting I lay back, the sole occupant of my own bed - slightly harder than the floor and (hitherto) nightmare-free.
There were earphone wires wrapped around my head and neck like some geek's bondage fetish. I untangled them and tossed them onto the table across the room.

I felt fine. Slightly shaken by the bizarre sequence of dreams, yes (the details were fading but the sense of unreality persisted). I couldn't recall the occupants of the police-car, or the face of the siren. I had a feeling she'd look like nobody I knew; the note of recognition in  the last dream had been the only false note in an otherwise-flawless night of terror.

The clock on my phone said it was barely past 3AM.
I cursed myself for turning in at midnight.

Then I lay back down to wait for sleep - pausing only to fall out of bed when a firetruck passed on the road outside.