aliens and ghosts

Tackling an Alien

I was really happy when we were finally allotted an independent house on campus, after living for years in hospital quarters and flats. Our house was one of the first to be constructed there. It was at one end of the 400 acre campus, isolated, surrounded by trees and very quiet. Conservative estimates put its age at a hundred. The founder’s Ida Scudder’s niece had lived there.

It was made of mud and plaster with an airy veranda in front. We led an idyllic existence, until one day my domestic, (a sensible woman who had worked with me for 20 years) announced, “I cannot clean the upstairs on Fridays. “

“Why?” I asked. I wondered if this was a prelude to what was to follow,  and she was soon going to make other demands like, “I will mop only once a week “ or “I will not put away the clothes.”

She whispered, “ There is a ghost here. It wears anklets and goes up and down the stairs on Fridays.”

“What nonsense” I said, “it is the wind blowing through the trees.”

She did not say anything, but then I noticed the upstairs was not cleaned on Fridays. The ghost apparently appeared during the daytime, unseen by her but with sound effects  and wandered up and down the staircase. I decided to ignore the matter. After all reliable domestics were hard to find. She made up on Saturdays by cleaning thoroughly.

After  a few months, there was a political bandh on Friday. This meant no buses ran, and though I could have driven through empty roads to work it was dangerous.  I could not go in to work, and the domestic help could not come.

 I sat at the dining table and worked on my lap top, I heard the anklets too. It was a regular tinkle like footsteps. It grew faint as it reached upstairs and louder as it came down.

I had a dog at that time,  a ferocious Lhasa Apso. He had a formidable reputation and had bitten several visitors, electricians, plumbers and relatives. He  went to the foot of the steps, stared fixedly at something  and howled with his  hair standing up on end and his  tail between his  legs. I tried to climb up the staircase, but something pushed me. The dog went berserk.

My  husband was travelling, and there was no one else in the house, I decided to sleep downstairs on the living room sofa. (I wasn’t going to climb up those stairs).

The ghost decided that it had a free run of the house.  On full moon and new moon nights it moved from room to room followed by an alternatively whimpering howling dog with its tail between its legs.

Things were getting out of hand. Something had to be done.

I discretely asked around. “Does anyone know an exorcist?” I decided to make it sound less weird by saying “I am doing an article on demonic possession---“

I finally discovered a priest ( he had his own Pentecostal church) who was willing to come and do the needful. I waited till my husband was travelling again and tried to fix an appointment.

“ Can you come in the evening after 7 pm? Can you not tell anyone why you have come?”

He was beginning to give me funny looks.

“Will anyone else be home?”

“No----“

He said “Can I not come when your husband is home?”

I wanted the appointment when my husband and servant were not at home. I was afraid she would quit the job if  her fears about a ghost were confirmed. My husband had never heard the noise or seen the dog’s bizarre behaviour so it would be impossible to convince him that anything was amiss..

“Okay , come at 7 pm. “ I fixed a date when I knew my husband would be in Delhi. “My husband will be home” I lied.

Come Friday, my husband cancelled his trip. I tried to contact the exorcist to cancel, but he was not picking up his phone. I started to get a desperate feeling. The  exorcist arrived with another man in tow. “Who is this?” I asked.

“My assistant” he replied. “Where is your husband?”

I think he was as wary of me as I was of him. As we eyed each other suspiciously, I heard my husband’s car pull into the garage.

“My trip was postponed” he announced. “Who are these people.”

Before I could say a word the exorcist announced, “I am father XYZ I have come to chase away the ghost.”

My husband’s jaw dropped. “Never heard such nonsense! Who said there are ghosts in this house?”

The exorcist glared at me.

I had confined the dog to the front veranda. He started to go berserk when he saw the strangers and my husband. At that precise minute the dog escaped from the veranda through a grilled window! He looked like a holy terror as he went straight for the exorcist’s thigh.

“Stop it” said my husband. The dog only obeys two commands “stop” and “sit” and that too intermittently. “Stop it” sounded alien. The dog paused for a minute and then attacked the exorcist’s assistant. He drew blood from his arm. Just then the ghost decided to climb the stairs. The dog lost interest in the exorcist and proceeded to howl at the staircase.

“This bloody dog is possessed, its not a ghost  “ said my husband. “Shut up you stupid thing.” The dog turned around and bit the exorcist. I attempted to get his leash on. He bit me.

The exorcist and assistant seized the  opportunity to flee.

I ran behind them, but forgot that I now had the dog with me on a leash.

“Please don’t  set the dog on us , God please save me,” shouted the exorcist. He and his assistant managed to open their car and  climb in.

I leant in through the window. He flinched and leant as far away from me as he could..

“Please”, I said “I am sorry about what happened. Can you come again?”

“Madam,” he replied ,”Do I look like a lunatic? You need exorcizing. And your dog!”

He sort of did look like a lunatic, with his hair awry and blood dripping on his clothes.

“Can you at least tell me how to chase away the ghost?”

The man’s face puffed up in anger and fear. “I feel sorry for the ghost. Why don’t you set the dog on it? Personally, I think your husband is right. Your dog is a devil.”

He revved up the car, the wheels spun around in the mud and he  finally left.

My husband was waiting at the kitchen entrance, “What on earth are you doing? Exorcist indeed! You are supposed to be educated and rational.”

I did not want to hear any more. As I headed up the stairs, I whispered to the ghost, “Now see what you have done. Why can’t you just stay on the staircase and stop harassing my dog?”

I heard a whoosh sound.

We had a saprophytic existence after that. The ghost left the dog alone. The upstairs was not cleaned on Fridays. If I was alone in the house I slept in front of the television on full moon days.

Then I researched ghosts and discovered they are not really spirits they are aliens, beings from another dimension trapped in limbo unable to return to their planet of origin. I stopped being afraid.

I expounded this theory to my husband. After listening for some time he said,” Don’t say this to other people. Lets just keep the alien our  secret---“

After fifteen years my husband retired and we moved away into our own house. I was a little afraid that  the alien would get into the luggage and move with us. He didn’t, but occasionally as I walk past our old house he flickers the front light to say hello.

Dr. Gita Mathai

The writer is a paediatrician with a family practice at Vellore