Did I know?

"What are you doing here?" shreiked Mohan as I entered the narow passage of a new but weary departmental store. The entrance was deserted in that late hour in the evening, and my sudden arrival had not been appreciated too kindly by this old friend of mine.

"Nothing much. Just checking out. Never been here before."

"I know you haven't. But I guess you shouldn't be here at this hour."

I paused and stared at him. He saw the exasperation in my eyes, and sulked back on his chair. "You won't find many shops open now. Not many people either. Roam around as you wish. Just scream if you need me."

'Why would I need to scream?' I thought. Hell, its a departmental store buzzing with activity since morn. 'Hey, wait. This was different.' Me and Mohan were the only people in sight, and I couldn't hear anybody else either. Was the store really closed? Or was it that nobody decided to visit it this very day? Or was I overreacting?

Mohan had now resumed his slow but loud slumber, lying sprawled in his chair, using every inch of it for his comfort. I resumed walking, and as I crossed him, I noticed the hallway wasn't as bright as it used to be. The bright tube lights weren't there, and a few low voltage bulbs did the job or them. They were placed at quite a distance from one another, and I could see intervals of total darkness along the way. Mohan was right, all the shops were closed. I walked on lazily. Shopping wasn't my main concern.

"Yes, may I help you?"

I turned and found a really old man staring blankly at me through his thick glasses. His was a badly- assembled stationery shop, one that I least intended to visit, or to make a purchase from.
"Do you keep fountain pens?" I asked anyway.

"Certainly. Come along."

I stood outside the meter- long shop. It was all cramped up, and made me feel sick already.
"Would you prefer a Duofold or an Omas?" asked the old man, still staring blankly at me.
"Show me all of them." I retorted quickly, while geting irritated at the constant stare and the obvious slowness of it all.

The old man started fumbling around in the lower shelves. He was unnervingly slow in the process, and I decided to wander around in the meantime. The old man emerged again as I took my first step away from the shop.

"Here you are Sir. Make your choice."

As I went through the rather old inventory, I secretly admired the old man's collection. He was standing at the other end of the desk, still staring at me.

"How do I address you?" I asked in a lighter mood.

The old man shrugged and then turned his stare towards the untidy shelves in the other corner of the bookstore. It was obvious he didn't want to answer my question. I waited for a while, and then resumed my examination of the fountain pens.

"Dutta." He finally murmured, and turned my attention back to him. He was still facing away from me, shaking his head along a row of worn out books in one of the shelves. I thought the old man was a bit senile, and decided to move away.

"That will be all, Mr. Dutta. I don't think I'll buy any of these."

Dutta suddenly turned towards me, giving me a curious glance. He briskly moved forward, and held my hand in a tight grip.

"Come along, will you? I have some more of these in the adjoining room. I am sure you will like those, Joy." He was suddenly friendly, and in a haste. He started pulling my arm with his.

"Hey, what are you doing, Mr. Dutta?" I shrieked, pulling my arm back from his strong grip. I gave him a cold glance, and left the shop. Once I was out of the clautrophobic dungeon, I paced ahead for a few seconds, resuming my lazy stroll after a while. Meeting weird people in the streets was nothing new to me. This old guy was another of that kind, I assured myself.

Joy?

My legs froze all of a sudden. I was sure the old man had said that. I was still young, and didn't hear voices out of the blue. How could Dutta have known my name? I took a step ahead into the dark, and then stopped myself halfway. I was as curious as hell.

I slowly started walking back towards the shop. It was dark, gloomy and a cold silence prevailed. My curiosity increased with every step I took, and my eyes went dry in anticipation of the events they were about to witness.

I kept walking until I realised I had covered about a hundred yards. Hey, the shop wasn't that far back, I reminded myself. Maybe I had missed the shop. It was so small anyway.

"Mr. Dutta." I called out to the old man, wishing he heard me and appeared out of the stream of shops. The old man didn't answer, making me look like a complete fool in the depressing surroundings. I called out his name several times again as I jogged back and forth in the narrow but vacant passage. But with no reply. I grew impatient as i jogged on, and my frustration led to anger, at the old man had not heeded my loud calls for so long. Some ten minutes passed before I finally stopped besides a vacant counter.

'Where is the bloody shop? And why doesn't that senile Dutta respond to me? He didn't look deaf to me. And how the hell did he know my name, and why the fuck did he disappear?'
My mind asked itself questions that it couldn't answer. My forehead was sweating profusely, and I felt so peculiar. It was so unnatural. Reality dawned on me, and I found myself standing alone in a giant mall, trying to search somebody I wanted to run away from a while back. And then I heard it.

As I was contemplating my next move, my mind being confused and tensed up, sweat streaming down my face, I felt a noise from a corner of the passage. It was like some old metal garage door being reluctantly swung around. Without a second thought, I acted on instinct and made a mad dash across the passage to where the sound had come from.

As I finally reached one corner of the passage, from where led the way to the main entrance, I glared with disbelief at what I saw, and stood froze, panting.

The metal doors of the main entrance slowly closed down on the departmental store. I screamed once as the two doors finally met, cutting off the last stream of rays that glistened across the polished passage.

And there was I, cut off from the rest of the world, and my incoming Fate.

I slumped down on the floor. My mind was wrestling with itself, fighting off a fear that it had never known before. The entire passage lay before me, empty, and the dim bulbs adding to the discomfort of the eery silence. I had closed my eyes, and was too fearful of opening them lest I saw any more dreadful sights. The image of the old man appeared before my eyes, and panic ran through my veins. 'Is this all real? Or is it all a terrible nightmare?' I thought. I could clearly remember the things I did earlier in the day. The meeting with Mr. Basu, the laughters at the Railway Reservation Counter, the brief call to Prachi, the busy journey back home and then a walk in the evening to a nearby Departmental store. And yes, the unexpected meeting with Mohan at the entrance of the mall. Mohan? Hey, he talked about screaming my lungs out in case I needed him. Did he know that I would get trapped like this all of a sudden? Why didn't he stop me? Why was he sitting on the chair at the entrance? Was he trying to warn me? Did he know the old man?

I kept asking questions to myself. The entire episode was a horrendous jumbled- up story. I was right at the heart of it. And I knew I was trapped. I had to come out of it. But how?


To be continued.