Blog 'Weak' : The Street-light

Welcome to the third day of blog 'weak'. I hope you liked the last two posts, they made my blog quite happy. If you haven't read them yet, they can be found here and here. 

I had been thinking of writing some fiction lately since 1. It's been a long time and 2. I really miss writing fiction. So today, while having a chat with dear friend and fellow blogger Ashna, I asked if she had any suggestions for the blog 'weak' and fiction and she had to say this,

Write a 'flash fiction' story in 300 words. It should have this phrase: 'The noise made me jump out of my skin...'  
It can either have a horror theme or something based on dreams. 

which I thought was a very interesting idea indeed. So here I am, choosing the horror theme. Hope you enjoy.


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I used to travel on foot from my theatre in New Panvel circus group each day. Playing a beat-up and overworked policeman for 3 months, I now looked exactly like my character; beat-up, overworked and stressed. 

I had found an alternate shorter route two weeks ago but the whole week before that day, while returning home, something strange kept happening. Whenever I reached that Y bend, post crossing the railway line, the street-light adjacent to an old rustic walled enclosure on my right turned on just as I crossed parallel to it. 

A little unnerving initially, it turned really creepy when starting the fifth day, the pattern reversed. The street-light started turning off from on just as I crossed it, with the addition of a faint yellowish light coming from under the enclosure’s door. On the seventh day I went up to the door to peep in. 

The diya
I saw a room and inside, first a diya, lit on the right edge of the floor. The next moment and just as I froze with fear, noticing a pair of pure white eyes on the left looking at me, a silently passing train nearby blared its horn and the noise made me jump out of my skin. I was frightened and ran straight back home. I couldn't sleep that night, and decided to not take that route again. 

But the next morning, I went back there for the last time. The door was open and empty. On asking around I found that the enclosure was part of a small mosque on the right leg of the Y curve I never travelled and a goat had been resting there for two days which got sacrificed that morning. It was Eid -ul- Adha. 

 ***

One question still circles my mind though. Why the street-light?

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So, this was my first ever attempt at '300' fiction. Was it good? Could it be done better? Of-course it could be, but do say how much. Thanks for reading :D

P.S: This story, including the three stars, is exactly 300 words.   

Comments

  1. Ashna October 18, 2013 at 10:40 AM

    Hiya! :D

    Thanks for sticking to the allotted theme! :D This was a great attempt. Yes, it could have been written in a way that was more creepy, but within the word limit, it is great! Outside of it, of course it'd have been awesome-r! ;)

    I loved the build-up to the solution and really, what about the lights going off and on? Go there one more time, if you're still brave. ;) Maybe it was the goat doing that somehow :P

    You write awesome Usama! :D Loving the blogweek! :D

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    Replies
    1. DreamerOctober 18, 2013 at 2:58 PM

      I am actually not at all satisfied with this story, specially the ending(I didn't want to give it that turn at all, but yeah let's let it be what it is). I guess, had I focused lesser on cramming the whole tale in 300 words and just presented a scene, it could have been creepier. Will remember it next time.

      Thanks for the comment Ashna, you're always so encouraging ^_^

      Delete
  2. Sarthak AhujaOctober 18, 2013 at 5:50 PM

    You, my friend, could write a story in 300 words. Do you know how cool that is! Even if the number of words don't limit me, I think I'll never be able to write fiction.

    So much respect for story writers.

    Also, how did you stretch your banner from one end to another with the buttons on it? :O

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    Replies
    1. DreamerOctober 18, 2013 at 11:23 PM

      Thank you so much Sarthak, I am really very glad to see your comment here. And u'll be surprised, try it sometime ;)

      Actually it is not the header banner. It is the page background image which I cropped to be very short and wide, since I was planning to keep the rest of the page blank. I don't have a banner and the header background is set to transparent.
      The buttons appear normally keeping with the width of the blog which is 950px(which means if I add two more tabs in the menu, they'll overflow :P)
      Bottomline: it's just jugaad :P

      Delete

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