It's midnight.
The last local train stopped at the Nangi station with a bang.
It's a winter night. There are only a few passengers on the train. Everyone will get off at the last station except me.
I'm returning home after a long time. I've heard that a lot has changed in the area. I can't see it with my eyes in the thick fog.
I got off the train. The station is silent and empty. There's not a single person.
The station lights are surrounded by a cold haze. Despite their many efforts, they can't push that cold haze away and spread their light around. That's why they can't be seen from a distance. From up close, they seem dim.
The station I know so well seems unfamiliar today. My body is trembling. As if an unknown fear has settled inside me.
On such a night, the hawks catch a single person. They can take away everything they have. Such fears are swirling in my head.
What will happen if I say that? It's already night by the time I get back.
Jana's bicycle is in the garage ahead. The motorcycle has been stored there by the master. He called me and informed me. Jana sleeps there at night. If you call him, he will get up and open the door.
It's freezing cold today. And it's so foggy. You can't see anyone in front of you from a hand's distance.
I got off the platform and went to cross the railway line, but I saw two people standing right in front of me on the railway line! Wearing a sando shirt and full pants.
I thought, oh my! What kind of body temperature! Even in such cold weather, they are wearing a sando shirt?
But I heard that if they are intoxicated, their bodies stay warm. But looking at them, they don't seem to be intoxicated. They could be gangsters. Maybe they are in some kind of action.
They don't say anything. They don't move. They just stare at me with one look.
I didn't say anything either. I didn't want to waste time talking unnecessarily. I would waste my time at night.
I tried to pass them by. When I saw them move to the side, they also moved in an instant and stood right in front of me.
I tried to pass them by several times, right and left. I couldn't. My eyes were drooping with sleep. At that moment, I closed my eyes and shouted. "What's going on?"
After that, I looked around. There was no one else! I couldn't see where they had run away to in the moment of my shouting.
I had heard that people who were run over by trains roam around the train tracks at night as ghosts. If they find a companion, they even go home with him.
So I chanted the name of Ram seventeen times and chased them away from me.
I didn't think much about it. In the fog that was already there, you wouldn't be able to see anything if you moved two feet. I slowly walked towards Jana's garage.
I took my motorcycle out of Jana's garage and started it. I saw Karim Bhai in the headlights. He was standing in front of me.
I didn't realize when he had come and stood in front of the car.
I knew Karim. He also lives in my previous village. We had to go on the same road.
I saw him wearing a peasant and a t-shirt!
I asked him as someone I knew. "Are you going home?"
He nodded and said, "Yes."
"Then sit in the back." I said.
When he sat in the back, I started the car.
Karim sat in the back. I asked him. "Why didn't you keep winter clothes with you? Aren't you feeling cold?"
"They didn't give you anything else from home." He said.
I was a little surprised. He kept talking about home so much?
Let's say that Baba and I have no work to do. Thinking that, I didn't ask anything else.
I walked forward quietly. First the flower garden, then the Kachari garden then, when we crossed the Barakan Tola and crossed the Chakatola intersection and entered our village, I asked.
"How many children do you have now?"
He replied. "Four."
"Are they all married?"
He replied. "Yes."
"Is the old man still alive?" I asked.
Just then, I was passing by the cemetery in Molla Para. Suddenly, a gust of wind came from that direction. It felt like the back of the car was no longer heavy. It had become light.
I stopped! I looked back and saw! The seat was empty!
Where did Karim Bhai go? Didn't he fall out of the car somewhere behind? We need to take a look.
I turned the car around and walked backwards. I called out a few times on the road. "Karim Bhai! Oh! Karim Bhai!"
Hearing my call, Manowar came out. His house is on the side of the road.
Manowar is my schoolmate. He came out and asked. "What happened?"
I told him everything. When I heard his answer, I was completely sweating even in the bitter cold.
He said. "Karim died a few days ago!"
So who did I bring in the car?
And I didn't dare to come home that way. I returned home in five minutes and took a fifty-minute detour.
But the ghost was still in my mind! If I saw another person in front of me, I would have thought it was a ghost. I can't say what happened.
From that day on, I never returned home at night. I don't know if an enemy ghost will be standing there somewhere. He will kill me.
Tell me, who wants to die at the hands of a ghost?