A Painting With A Secret

By Laxmi Guria

“What she looked like?” He asked the man who was shivering and trembling with fear.

Around midnight, the police department got an emergency call from an anonymous: ‘A HOUSE ON FIRE.” A strange calm could be heard in its voice even though it shouldn’t be. The officer tried to talk further but the call itself got hanged up from the other side.

“A fire reported nearby. It is an emergency!” The officer alarmed everyone on the working hour and wondered silently, “Who could that be?”

The police went to the location with the fire brigade team. Thankfully, they were able to control the harm and save the man who started the fire at the first place.

“What she looked like!” The man sarcastically repeated the question to one of the officers, mocking his foolishness and raised his voice with rage, “You still care what she looks like? You think it is more important than what she did? What she did to me!”

“We still need a face to find her.” He restrained his anger, showing a gesture of professionalism.

“Find her? We already have her. Just take her away from me, from my house.”

“What do you mean?” He felt a sense of intrigue that he couldn’t help it but ask the man with sincerity.

“Sir, he’s talking about the painting. According to his alibi, it is the painting who put the house on fire.” One of the officers, who was interrogating the man first, answered.

“Yes, it is the truth. She wanted to kill me.” The man added.

“Painting?” His eyes asked again.

“Yes, sir. The one upstairs.”

The police officer took him to the painting that the man mentioned about. The painting, the portrait of a lady, on the wall.

“What happened here?”

“The man tried to burn it, but it didn’t burn unlike the surface around it. If we didn’t have arrived here on time, he would have burned the whole house along with himself

“And still, it looks brand new? As if nothing happened at all.” He was in shock to see the paint still fresh as if she is alive. A living, beautiful being, breathing under the light of the wall lamp. It won’t be unfair to call her a maiden, he was mesmerized in awe. He touched her hand, as if she called him out to do so. Her eyes smiled brighter than her red lips. He heard a voice. A voice calling out his name, soft and cheerful, like those little girls playing and laughing he saw on the road side while coming here. The closer he went, the clearer the voice became. “It must be the sound of some anklets.” He assumed as the sound was clearly audible to his ears, as if someone’s running with one.

“Sir?” The police officer called out his name but it didn’t seem like it reached his senses. He called him again but he remained the same, ignored or may be, unheard.

“I can hear you.”

“Hear who?”

“I want to see you.” He replied to the voice but the police officer mistook it for himself.

“Sir, whom are you talking to? Are you alright? Are you even listening to me?” The police officer panicked as his responses were strange. As soon as he could do anything, someone screamed from the downstairs.

“Who was that?” The voice was gone as he got distracted by the sudden howl for survival.

“Sir? What happened to you? Are you alright, now?” The officer asked in concern.

“Huh? N… nothing. I am fine. Let’s go.”

He went down with the police officer to follow the scream downstairs. And what he saw was stranger than what he heard through the painting upstairs.

“She’s here. She’s here.” The man shouted loudly as he saw the lady of the painting in front of him, handing out her right hand as if she is really here to take him away.

“Who’s here?”

“She’s here to take me again.”

“What is happening here?” He frightfully asked the people around him.

“Man, whom you are talking to? Nothing’s here!” A man among the crowd yells at the man.

“Can’t you see she’s here? I need to get out of this. Otherwise, she will kill me as well like she killed those little girls.”

“Little girls?” He questioned his own memory.

“Calm down, mister.”

“You don’t understand, fool. The painting is cursed. She will kill everyone whoever tries to…” The man took out a gun from one of the police officers’ pockets and pointed at nothing, something which was invisible to others. They were unable to figure out the situation.

“The man is dangerous.” He yelled at the police officers to protect everyone around them and the moment he could do anything, he heard her again. He heard the sound of the anklets.

“What is this sound?” He looked around but it seemed like no one could hear them like he did.

“There she goes wearing them again!”

“What? Even he can hear them?” He looked at the man, who was pointing the gun on himself this.

“You can hear her too, right? She’s wearing those annoying anklets of her. Run away or she will take you too!” He was not able to make sense out of this, all of this which was happening right in front of him. An unknown call, from whom? A man with a gun, a criminal or a victim, mental or sane? What about him and the painting? Is he gone bonkers or did he just hear her, the lady in the painting? If none can hear her other than this lunatic then what is going to happen to him? The second he could react to all of these, the man ran outside of the house and stopped at the front door and shot himself with the same gun in his hand. The man is dead, did he shoot himself down or the painting killed him?

“I need to find the truth!”

By Laxmi Guria