The Red Scarf

The Red Scarf

I was moping miserably between breath and death in Purgatory. An underlying boredom is part of the punishment for one’s forced time there. No wonder then, when the silver elevator temporarily connects this halfway house back to the Land of the Living, there is a mad rush of applications from its stopover inhabitants. Hope is eternal, even in Purgatory. Many who are stuck here also suffer extremes of anger and resentment because of the manner of their untimely leaving of life. 

There is only a lottery winner’s chance of being on the elevator because there is a strict cap on how many of us can go down each time. The Board has to keep up quality standards.

Once my application was in I had a bit of a wait but then I was summoned for the three step evaluation of my psychic suitability. There was an interview to assess motivation, followed by a written examination on etiquette and finally an on-stage improvisation in front of an audience. It went pretty well. I related at my interview that I had been strangled by my twelve year old brother the night before my wedding to an outsider of our faith. An honour killing. Therefore, I had every reason to haunt him - and the rest of my family, too, since they had groomed the boy to murder me. Being under age, the penalty for him killing me would be far more lenient than if a grown-up had done it. Ten years in a youth offenders prison, maximum.

Anyway, my story demonstrated high motivation.

Next came the written test. It was a multi-choice paper on the principles of modern manifestation; how to avoid spill-over among innocents, staying within the locus of the crime scene and maintaining at all times a stable, recognisable and appropriate projection of your once living self. Basically, it involved not bringing retribution-by-haunting into disrepute. 

I showed a real grasp of the ethics involved.

For the third and final test, I had to demonstrate skills in a full range of haunting techniques. On the theatrical set, with members of the Board watching, I had to improvise a full-on haunting, using mannequins of my family members as props. I dimmed the lights and combined footsteps on stairs, night wailing, a sudden terrifying finger pointing appearance and the smashing of much loved heirlooms, to great effect. 

I was utterly convincing.

I received a distinction and immediately applied for a one month return to Earth for an initial series of visitations to my family home.

The elevator drop was exhilarating. There were about a hundred representatives from various parts of the world. I was the only Asian. I stepped into the shimmering tube in full, colourful Kasavu saree and landed, moments later completely grey, weightless and disoriented. I tugged the string - these days nicknamed the ripcord - and hurtled across the world as if I was caught on the end of a retracting elastic band. However, instead of suffering G forces from the thrust and deceleration, I suddenly was a hovering wraith, serene in the dark of the familiar house of my upbringing.

That first night I did some poltergeist damage, smashing votive cups, candles and offerings to Lakshmi on the family shrine. I kept the noise levels down because I wanted the haunting to have a classically slow build-up of tension. The family woke the next day perplexed and angry on discovering the damage. At first they blamed the cats who must, they thought, be the culprits. But cats never show shame, unlike dogs, so they couldn't be sure. And maybe the first unsettling glimmer of what was really happening was nibbling at the edges of their guilty consciousnesses.

The next night I woke everyone up in the early hours with piercing screams and the sound of footsteps running up and down the stairs. That got their fears running out of control. And to cap it all they found a red scarf, a ghoonghat, inexplicably tied to the bannisters. It is worn by our women upon marrying. I was killed before I could wear mine. Worse, it had been used to strangle me. Leaving one on the stairs was poetic, don't you think?

The family had all gathered to celebrate my uncle’s birthday, so it was a full house. Their lack of sleep was fully evident. Conversations were fractured, anxious and short tempered. My uncle and his kin had to be persuaded to stay one more night, the night of his actual birthday. Then everyone would disperse. There was even talk of selling the house.

By the evening everyone had grown slightly more relaxed. During the third course of the festive dinner I struck again. The telephone rang and my father answered it. He returned to the table, pale and distraught, “Abhi, our son, is dead,” he announced in a whisper to the horrified faces around the table. “He was found hung an hour ago. Some sadist had smuggled a ghoonghat into his cell.”

My mother screamed, scrabbling at her red silk scarf as if it was going to choke her, too. As she pulled it off her throat it disengaged from her hand and floated towards the shrine, now tidied up and with new candles. Transfixed, everyone watched as it burst into flames and, caught in a cross draught, passed the fire on to the celebratory bunting. The room was ablaze in seconds. There was a rush for the door. It was locked. The screams were terrible. But to me they were a symphony, extolling the course of justice.

I caught a much earlier return chute to Purgatory than I had anticipated.

An evaluation of my paranormal activity was presented to the Board. I was commended for exacting maximum retribution with minimum intercession. So impressed was the President that he asked me afterwards if I would like to join Purgatory’s elite, a rapid response team of apparitions who work in Reprisal, the section which deals with perpetrators of multiple fatalities; bombers, serial killers and their ilk

I accepted the brief without a second thought. Purgatory had its pluses.