Apartment 4402 : The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Backdrop And The Rules Of The Game :

It all started with Savio Paes and his invite on story time for contributing to a “spook-able” mystery wherein the prologue-ic chapter written by him, ending obviously on a cliffhanger, would be built up further by another storyteller nominated by him. Similarly, the nominated storyteller would add his/her part/chapter of the story handing  the baton over to the next nominee of his/her choice and so on and so forth. If the next Storyteller, thus nominated, does not wish to participate, he/she can pass on the thread to somebody of his/her choice to continue the story.  The condition being that there would not be any deviation from the introductory tale and the subsequent storytellers would just be carrying forward the narrative to a reasonable denouement.

The Story As It Has So Far Unfolded :

Chapter 1 by Savio Paes – Welcome to Apartment no. 4402

Chapter 2 by Rajeshwari A housewarming Party gone seriously wrong

Chapter 3 by Lalitha – Enter Arjun the initial owner dead forty years back

Chapter 4 by Sri – One Apartment two ‘existing’ owners – one dead the other alive

Chapter 5 by Meeta – A staircase to the Unknown and a Man not yet born

Chapter 6 by Foolz Another Kabir and a nameplate with an illegible name

Chapter 7 by Parikhit – Gatecrashes the mysterious woman

Chapter 8

Arjun – the one who had purchased a cursed Apartment  from the shadiest real estate dealer, Jamshed Screwala, and had generously thrown a housewarming party to seven of his choicest chums – now stood thinking.

A kaliedoscope of convoluting images scrolled on the screen of his mind one after the other.

Apartment no. 4402.

On the 44th floor of a high rise.

Arjun had deliberately kept the doors and windows uncurtained.

The housewarming party was getting to be a roaring success.

Till the previous owner, again named Arjun, who had died forty years back, came back to enjoy the party with them.

Followed by another Arjun who was yet not born along with his daughter.

Then the appearance of a mysterious staircase, a second Kabir , a look alike of one of his partying friends and the nameplate on which were written ten names with the last one badly scratched off.

And then a bolt out of the blue  – the mysterious self invited  additional guest – a woman who nobody knew!!!

Arjun suddenly felt the dark drawing hall was too suffocatingly crowded.

He also noticed how the other two Arjuns had strangely fallen silent. Odd!!

Rhea, Rory, Meera, Ketan, Rohan, Kabir, Jamshed and his two crazy doppelgangers and the child who held a red balloon – nobody spoke.

He had recently seen a podcast on You Tube on Parallel Universes. Jamshed had said that the Arjun  who died forty years ago belonged to a different time zone.

But they both existed – the living and the dead.

Once one of Arjun’s learned colleagues had told him about the limitation of the human mind.

“When Lord Krishna revealed the Vishwaroop to Arjuna, the latter had screamed out in pain and requested Krishna to stop. What did that mean?”

“What?” Arjun had uncomprehendingly questioned back.

“Have you seen Interstellar, the Christopher Nolen movie ?” Asked his colleague.

He had not waited for a reply but continued.

“The universe has multiple dimensions but human beings in their limited sensorial or cerebral capacity cannot take in all the dimensions together or simultaneously.”

Was he, in similar lines, now experiencing the crazy interplay of multiversal existences ? Was that why his head  hammered a beat which was getting excruciatingly agonizing to endure ?

Was he and the others were somewhere away from reality ? That is the reality he knew as reality?

Perhaps they would all dive down a wormhole any minute and emerge on the planet called earth they once inhabited.

And these vexing multiple versions of his own self and that of Kabir would evaporate into thin air !!

He opened his eyes…and looked straight into her’s..

The woman !!

She stood looking at him with a strange expression.

You think too much.” She said a mocking smile playing on her lips.

Whattt ?

How did she know what he was thinking ?

Was she a mind reader ?

“Its high time I figure out what’s happening.” Arjun proffered an explanation.

“Do you mean to say you still can’t?” She asked enigmatically.

“Well! I had just bought a flat but I had never bargained for a past and a future owner.” Arjun replied irritatedly.

“But there is no past or future. It’s only in your mind.” She looked almost disappointed that Arjun had been daft enough not to have grasped this simple fact already.

“But…” Arjun began

“It all started with you, Arjun….” She completed, “Don’t you see?”

For one nano moment Arjun stood flabbergasted by the calm confidence with which she replied.

As though she knew something that he didn’t.

And then in a flash of a second everything flooded back to him.

Of course! One of them had to go…

The Apartment … this Apartment no. 4402…didn’t it hold the clue????

Not just that the number summing up to the digit 10…

No…There was much more to it….that could explain what his friends obdurately denied even to their own selves….

The one who had to leave was always destined to leave…

How stupid of him not to understand…

It was so……maddeningly obvious….

He suddenly realised that the woman was looking not at him but somewhere beyond yet through him.

Again that playful smile hovered around her lips.

She took a step forward towards him.

As though walking on clouds

But when she spoke her words were tinted with ill-suppressed mirth.

“So now you know, Arjun. Don’t you ?.….”

***

Postscript :

When Parikhit handed over the thread of the story to me and having read the previous chapters , so imaginatively written by such super talented writers in their own inimitable styles, I was really at my wit’s end on how to continue the narration. Having taken a cue from Savio’s comment on Parikhit’s chapter, I thought to initiate a passage leaning towards the closure of the incredible mystery. I do not know how successful I have been in aligning this one with the rest of the chapters and leaving a clue for the next writer in line to follow it up, but I have sincerely tried my best.

For convenience of the readers I have briefly mentioned the story line within the chapter itself so that it would be easier for them to understand what happened so far.

Handing On The Baton :

I would like very much that Reena of Creative Minds And More, whose intellectually driven writings and storytelling I admire very much,  should pick up the thread of the story from hereon and give it a direction in her own unmistakable style. In case, she chooses not to, she can pass on the baton to a nominee of her choice.