I tried to convince him that there is no such thing as ghost. But he refused to listen to anything I have said. He let fear destroyed his life. He let fear robbed his sanity.
“What we have done is a sin,” he said.
“She is going to punish us. God is going to punish us. We will be burned in hell.”
He was so afraid of sleeping. He would go any length to stay awake including taking all kinds of drugs and countless cups of coffee.
Whenever he slept, he would have terrible nightmares where she was chasing us and making our lives a living hell.
“I do not want to sleep any more,” he said.
“I want the nightmares to stop. I want her to stop haunting us.”
Of course it was impossible to stay awake forever. Each time he woke up from his sleep, he would shout his lungs out. He sounded as if he was a war prisoner that was being tortured, mercilessly.
Sometimes he would hit his head on the wall till it bleed, as a punishment for sleeping. I had no choice but to admit him in a mental asylum. I had high hopes the doctors will find a cure for his madness. But I was wrong.
In the mental asylum, his madness got worse and his fear reached to the highest peak. He lived in his own world and refused to speak to anyone except me. His doctors lost any hopes of curing him.
He spends his days and night drawing the woman that we had killed … the woman that was haunting him…the woman he claimed is making his life a living hell. His room was full of her portraits.
“I think God will forgive me,” he said to me, out of the blue.
Those lines were enough to bring smiles to my face. For once I had hopes that he would recover. But his next sentence was enough to tell me his madness will not end and fear has become his new companion.
“But I do not think she can ever forgive me,” he added.
“She is not that forgiving.”
****
A year after his arrival at the asylum, he ended his fear for once and all. He found a way to escape from the mental asylum. He ran towards a moving train, totally naked. He left a suicide note, addressed to me.
Dear Jennifer
Death is the only thing that could give me the peace I desperately want. Sometimes death is not bad thing. Death is ending of all misery.
From your loving
Jack.
Those were his last words. In some ways, he was right. His death was the ending of his misery. He was no longer a tortured soul any more. He can’t forgive himself for the murder we had committed.
I, other hand, was totally different.. Oddly enough it was him who first suggested of killing her.
“Life will be better for us if she was not in our lives any more,” he said to me.
I had reservation of killing her. But he can be very persuasive.
“Do you want to spend the rest of your life looking after her,” he said.
“We are young. We are supposed to enjoy life. Not to be trapped in this house and looking after her. Sometimes death is not a bad thing. Death is ending of all misery. Her death will be the end of her misery … and ours too.”
Like him, I was tired of looking after her. The first time she broke the news of her illness, he was shocked. So was I. We have never seen her sick in all our lives.
All of us had tears in our eyes and we hugged each other tightly. We promised her that we look after her till her last breath and, we will be compassionate, caring and loving to her.
She believed every word we told her. But we never kept to our promise. We never expected looking after a sick woman could be a real burden.
We underestimated her illness and overestimated our capabilities. Just waiting to see her doctors can be a tiring affair and can really test your patient.
Constantly, dealing with her vomiting, her wetting her bed and her wailing in pain was enough to drive us crazy. Managing a full time job and looking after a sick person can be tremendously stressful. And when the stress was too much for us to bear, he came up with the plan of killing her and dragged me into this diabolical plan.
Both of us put our head together and came up with a perfect plan. We pushed her out from our apartment’s window. Naturally the police arrived at the scene. The police ruled out murder. The police came to a conclusion that she had jumped out from the window at her own will.
After all, her suicide letter was lying on the table. Her suicide note was simple and said:
My dear children,
I am in so much pain. I have stayed alive just for you. Please do not cry over my death. Sometimes death is not a bad thing. Death is ending of all misery.
From your loving mom
Jacqueline.
Of course my mother never wrote the suicide note. It was my brother who did it. The moment my mother’s funeral was over, my brother madness began.
His guilt haunted him. He was convinced our mother has returned from her grave to punish us for being the ungrateful children. It was guilt that drove him to his death.
As for me I have not seen my mother’s ghost. I never had nightmares where she was making our lives miserable.
My conscious didn’t bother me at all. I have convinced myself that killing her was a necessary. My mother was in pain all the time and we just ended her misery.
Of course it was a different story with my brother. I keep seeing him everywhere. He keeps begging me to end his misery.
I have no peace. I am anxious and nervous all the time. My friends tried to convince me that there is no such thing as a ghost…..
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