The Curious Incident of Creeps

Jishu gingerly breathed in the caustic smell of the plastic bag. Though the air was powdery, it served the purpose. His head was completely inside the packet, along with his naked right hand that scrunched the opening shut from inside at his neck. He locked his left hand inside the lower ream of the full sleeved pullover he was wearing. The thick Denim jeans and Reebok sneakers hid pretty much of his body. "At least there’s no naked skin on display," he reassured himself hopelessly. Through the milky translucence of the plastic packet, he watched in detached horror as the tiny sliver of space under the door darkened and the dull yet chilling arachnidan shuffle filled the room.

It all began in June that year. The days had been unbearably hot and the nights, well, chillingly cold. The experience was something new for the residents of Murwak, a quaint little town situated at the more temperate zones of central India. The heat had brought out a wave of pests and insects. They bred in multiples of thousands and entered all homes. Housewives spent their days dredging concoctions to keep the insects away from the kitchens and bedrooms, while the men violently swatted anything that alighted on their person. Children were at first amused by the sudden profusion of tiny playthings all around them. But soon, painful bites and itches made them stay indoors. It was all a ‘normal’ diversion from routine, as many said. “Lady weather has a right to be fickle at times,” quipped the old cronies. But that opinion didn’t last long. Fickleness has limits; it doesn’t include invasions by multiples of thousands of spiders.

Despite the heat that day, Jishu had dressed well, and with good reason. If there was anything that was going to save you from the creepy-crawlies, that was lack of dermal-contact. The turtle neck acrylic pullover covered most of his torso, tight enough to discourage anything wanting to crawl inside, or so he hoped. He took pride in wearing his jeans and sneakers, reminders of his college-days. In all, he was mostly covered, except for his head and hands. Those, he decided, must remain so if he were to go to the post office to send the telegram. “A little chance is worth taking,” he mulled.

The walk revealed an eerily deserted town. No fruit vendors roamed the streets, nor did the street dogs. All shops had downed the shutters. No children played in the front lawns of homes. However, some movement at the windows revealed existence of people. Even the occasional tweet of a bird sounded somewhat melancholy. At the post office the uncharacteristic quiet ruffled him. He told himself not to be surprised because the entire town had been that way for the past one week. He knew how to operate the machine and the task itself should not take more than a few minutes. Before long, he too would be out, back home. Taking a deep breath to calm his jittery nerves, Jishu stepped inside the colonial styled stone building. The telegram room was at the far end. Still reeking with smell of long queues of people wanting to send one urgent message, the yellowed walls of the small room were quite bare, except for one huge poster. On it were listed a number of messages for various occasions – 'get well soon', 'congratulations on your wedding', 'come urgently' and so on. Basically, helping people minimise the number of letters, and hence, the cost, of the message.

Jishu peered over the counter and spotted the equipment. He knew he could operate it quite easily. He closed the door for good measure, and the windows too. However, the gaps around the frames weren’t very encouraging. “Well, if that’s the best that can be done, that be it,” he concluded before swinging over the counter.

He wasn’t even two minutes at the Telegram machine that a suffocating sense of isolation and terror gripped him. Looking up from the paper, he stared wide-eyed at the door and windows that seemed menacingly still. With his heart beating faster by the minute, Jishu looked around frantically, and spotted a plastic cover that contained reams of paper. He turned it upside down and emptied it violently. Then, he dived under the desk and pulled the plastic bag over his head. Now, breathing in the caustic smell of the bag and peering through the milky translucence, he waited for the inevitable.

Sure enough, the tiny gap under the door darkened. And then, it advanced. The darkness covered the floor inch by inch, gradually moving towards the counter. Peering through the bag Jishu looked transfixed at the approaching dark swathe, that could only be thousands of spiders, unable to decide what to feel – awe or terror. “Snap out!” he scolded himself. Breathing heavily by then, he wondered if he should make his escape through the door. After all, he was much faster than the spiders. “But what lies beyond? If there are thousands here, there must be millions out there in the rest of the building. Will I be able to out-run them all?” he wondered frantically.

The dark mass had approached the counter and was now crawling under it, over it, on its sides. “It’s almost as if they know I’m here,” thought Jishu with rising panic. He recalled how the other day, his neighbour, Mrs Barthawal, recounted the ordeal of the labourer’s family. Having migrated from another state, the family was asleep in a makeshift tent. The next morning people found their blue-greyed mottled bodies. “Is that what is going to happen to me?” wondered Jishu. Immediately, he cursed his heroic streak for making him venture out of the safety of his house. “Why did I not think of this? There’s not even a damn phone in this room. And even if there, were, who would I call? Will they come in time to rescue me?” With the dark shadow advancing every second, that proposition seemed highly unlikely. “But it was important to send the telegram... If I didn’t let my college know about the situation here, they would suspend me... oh God... what did I do to deserve this...” brooded Jishu as his mind rapidly vacillated between guilt and sympathy for self.

As the crawling darkness surrounded the desk, Jishu watched terror struck. Words in his head were now a mere garble... each second seemed like an hour. Crouched in the upright foetal position, he could hardly breathe... but did he want to breathe? Thoughts no longer made sense... panic and fascination overlapped. He stared, his pupils dilated and his face dripping with sweat. The limited supply of air inside the plastic bag was fast depleting. He could open the opening around his neck just a little to allow some fresh air to come in; but should he dare to? No, he was more comfortable this way... better than having spiders on your face in your eyes inside your nostrils and mouth... The approaching dark shuffle was now just a few centimetres away. The room seemed to have darkened and the only sounds were the muffled shouts in his head, the schrushy sound of the plastic bag inflating-deflating around his face and the perpetual shuffle.

“I’m safe... I’ll be ok... they can’t get me...” the young man repeated in staggered bouts of consciousness. But it was a hopeless mantra that had lost its magic. At last the dark shuffle reached him, climbed over his legs, hips, back, arms and head... Jishu tightened his grip over the bag. There was nothing to breathe now but his own exhalation... dark, damp and suffocating... “But this is better... this is better.... better...” thought the helpless man before darkness completely enveloped him.

“It’s awfully tragic,” mumbled the police inspector. The room, with its bare walls, floor and ceiling provided a stark contrast to the khaki uniform of the personnel. “If the guy had to kill himself, he should have simply gone out and got bitten by spiders... What got him to suffocate himself to death in a Telegraph office?”

The forensics examiner gingerly collected the plastic bag. The room was quiet again. A solitary spider shuffled across the giant poster, spinning a web across the letters, “Condolences on untimely demise...”