“WHY did he have to be late today of all days? Especially with what’s going on in the city,” she thought.

The rains poured down hard and without relent. The narrow ledge overhead provided but a semblance of protection against the downpour. The night had already set in and the few functioning street lamps on the EM Bypass fought in vain against the darkness which had by now enveloped most of Calcutta.
Today wasn’t one of those perfect days. They were few and far in between since her mother had died. The boss wasn’t happy with her work, and office gossip, something she looked forward to, revolved around the morose. The recent spate of killings in the city by an unknown killer was all people talked about, and she couldn’t stand the speculations by the know-italls. They said the killer looked for lonely targets. They said he hunted without purpose, because he loved to kill. They said the last thing the victim saw was the red ribbon he tied around their necks as he slit their throats and left them to bleed. Brrrr… A shiver went down her spine. The speculations scared her. Yes today wasn’t one of those perfect days. But the day had seemed to turn for the better when he called. “Meet me today,” he had said. “Wait for me tonight near the bridge after work and I’ll pick you up. I have a surprise for you.” It was where they had first met. She was stranded in the rain at night and he had appeared out of nowhere and had offered to drive her home. It was an unlikely place for anyone to be. But something in his eyes made her
trust him and
things hadn’t
looked back
since then.
He made her
laugh, made
her feel special. He
filled up the lonely void her mother had left. She was lost in her thoughts. The movement startled her. The figure in the raincoat had appeared out of nowhere and was now an inch behind her. It was one smooth motion as her hands reached into her bag and clasped the smooth ivory handle of the knife she had bought after her mother was assaulted on the street. The blade shimmered before it plunged deep into the assailant. She felt the warm blood trickling down her arm as she saw her lover’s face. Not him. Why him of all people? She loved him. But then it was done. The raindrops had started washing the blood off. A tear left her eye as she took out the red ribbon from her purse. It gives me great pleasure to fly in dreams. I can move upwards easily avoiding whatever comes on the way. The phenomenon puzzled me till I met a stranger in the lakes the other day. Trees lining the lake sheltered the migratory birds during winter. The stranger, sitting beside me, keenly watched the birds as well as me.
“Are you still thinking about flying in a dream?” The man asked me as if he were a thought reader. His voice was so mysterious that I forgot to get offended although being spoken to by a stranger. “Yes, but…?” He said, “These birds fly across mountains and deserts to reach warmer environs.” “But how is it related to my dream, sir?” “You fly in a dream when a particular window of your mind opens. You must have observed that you fly in dreams in a pleasant state of mind.” “I am not exactly sure, though I feel great pleasure in dream-flying. I wonder why I lose height slowly after some time. The gravitational pull becomes too much to overcome then. ” The gentleman ignored me and went on elaborating his theory. “The brain stores enormous data which include your coded anthropological history. Once decoded, you can reconvert yourself to one of your earlier forms of existence, which might even be that of a bird.” “Has anyone busted the code yet, sir?” “The code is a complex matrix based on all the relationships involving the four-dimensional vector distances among the stars of a particular constellation. For example, you can change yourself to a bird with the code Sagittarius and so on. You must be very careful about time, the fourth dimension. It’s the key.”
He smiled happily revealing the greenish inside of his mouth. “Is the future also written in the brain like the past? Is the brain a kind of a continuum, sir?” I could not suppress my puzzled look while asking this.
His reply confused me still more.
“Yes, the time-space continuum forms the canvas of the puzzle. Otherwise how could I tell you things, which are still on a different time plane?”
I tried to grasp his contention. Time flew. A few moments seemed like eternity.
The person vanished into thin air in those missing moments. A big green frog jumped from his place into the lake and looked at me with bulging eyes wearing a familiar expression on its face.