"The Unmet Ghost"
‘’It’s already late now. Tutoring students is quite a task till 8 pm. On top of that, this electricity cut’’, she said to herself. Her heart had already skipped a beat in that dark. In that winter month, it got dark pretty soon. It had affected her whole productivity of a day she could have then in summer. She kept talking to herself.
‘’Oh, I reached the ghost haunted river already. The moon is reddish; it’s called the blood moon; they tell this myth every time’’, she added. She is pretty scared now. She wanted her brain to control these ghost stories. She doesn’t remember the thing she studied during exam hall but now all the ghost stories from ages revolved around her. ‘’Brain stop it’’, she kept blabbering. Things could get pretty bad for the over thinkers, you know?, especially when they are in extreme fear.
Her heart had a hard time dealing with it, and so was her brain. She was expecting a ghost to poke her from the back. What if it calls her name? What if it was following her? Her feet were trembling. Her monologue had no stopping. She felt furious to have listened to all the stories and horror movies from childhood. Additionally, it was famous as a ghost river. There were folktales that sometimes vehicles got into accidents; after the drivers saw kichkanya or kichkandi. They even said that humans were lost on the road as they would never reach home though the destination would appear near. The dead bodies of people were found at dawn. Now she was walking the same aisle.
She always wanted to be productive in her youth. She wanted to earn money to support her family or her lifestyle. She didn't like the weather, the darkness, the fatigue, or the hunger to make her feel guilty or like a victim. Even though time was never on her side, she wanted to give her parents some financial relief. She was walking the footpath as the cars traveled at top speed on the motorway. The clean road, lack of traffic, and desire to get home quickly could blame for the fast pace. It wasn't a walkway that an engineer had created; instead, people created it for themselves. She had information that only at night were the heavily loaded trucks allowed to travel. She so took the decision to use the darker man-built pathway rather than the bright main road. Because she was confident that even if she had an accident with those trucks, no one would be able to hear her scream for aid if she walked along the highway. She thought it would be safer to use the torch on her phone rather than take this significant risk. Since she crossed that path every day, it wasn't very challenging either. She was walking in the moonlight on a very gloomy route. The number of automobiles decreased after 8 o'clock at night. But she takes a walk to get home.
She searches all around and behind her only to discover that nobody else is moving. She had been taught that ghosts aim to frighten people when they are defenseless and alone. She is now more careful than ever because of this. She became more conscious than ever of her senses. She had been creating a terrifying world in her head. There, she was her sole buddy. She felt a little frightened inside and was sure that today's ghosts would scare her. She now regrets making the brave decision to teach tuition at such a late hour only to be on time for work. A jeep sped past her on the highway while she spoke in a monologue. The headlight revealed something that appeared to be a human figure. Her terror had no bounds. All the tales she had heard were true, and she believed she would die. She was right. In the middle of the road, she was terrified enough to be unable to turn around. The ghost would also pursue her further and terrify her to death. She had no choice except to accept it as fate.
She had to walk, so as she did, she felt closer to completing her most significant obstacle. She didn't want to take them, but she had no other option. With each step, the human form began to take on a more recognizable and distinct shape. The spotlight of another vehicle immediately illuminated that figure. Thank goodness, it was a man in his mid-30s to early 35s. She was delighted to learn it was a human. He was sitting lower down than where she was moving about. Boys peeing on the side of the road are very typical in Nepal. She assumed that the situation was the same here. However, she couldn't help but wonder why he didn't turn around and face the road, where cars might be flashing their lights in his direction. Seeing him partially undressed and displaying his private area made her heart skip. Her thoughts vanished. He wasn’t peeing but intended to show his private body part. She just happened to remember turning on the smartphone flash in a hurry.
She was unable to see that person's face. She could not show it to the individual because doing so would give that person a significant advantage. He aimed to demonstrate the dynamics of power. She had experienced the boy's flashes before. Many drunken people would expose their bodies and make barely audible comments. Even though she couldn't remember it, she was confident that it had meant something extremely offensive to her when she was only ten years old. She didn't want to look at the face of the shameless person either. She was disgusted. However, her fear was causing the amygdala in the brain to react aggressively. She was conscious of her powerlessness in the chilly, dark setting, but she didn't want to give up. She had, after all, struggled for empowerment all of her life, through both the happy and the excruciating moments. She gave a loud scream. Her brain had already prepared for a fight-or-flight reaction.
Many people could believe she was creating a mountain of a mole in this situation, as fortunately there was no such incidence of rape, acid assault, or other crime. She knows that people only view physical injury as the worst form of suffering and disregard everything else. However, she wants to scream to the world that harassment leaves victims with terrible scars from which they will never fully recover. Her parents began pressuring her to stop tutoring since it was risky. Her life was dramatically altered by a random visitor; she was once more bound beneath the glass ceiling, which she desperately wished to destroy. She was not at all deserving of this penalty.
An educated, capable, and confident woman was defeated by that absurd circumstance. While the perpetrator may be having a peaceful night outside, it is a defeat for all of humanity and society. Even as young children, we are made aware of these disgusting things under any labels, but seldom are we taught that people are more terrifying? She never encountered fictional ghosts in any shape or form that she created in her head, but she did encounter these scary beings on public transportation, online bullying, a gathering of eve-teasing individuals, sexist and misogynistic leaders, and policymakers. She began to fear people rather than superstitious ghosts, and just people, after that day…
