The Walking dead.

Loktak observed a bus hurtling down the road at full speed. Right in the middle of the road, there was a man, standing, oblivious to the danger he was in. The bus would be on him in less than five seconds and there was no way he would get out of it's way in time. Loktak, more out of habit than need, screamed at the top of his voice, but his voice was of a quality that no man could hear.

The man looked up in Loktak’s direction and in the same instant the bus passed over him. Loktak averted his gaze, so as to avoid looking at the gory scene he expected. But when he looked back, the man was standing right where he had been before the bus had hit him. It was as if the bus had driven right through him. The man was looking in Loktak’s direction and Loktak, by now, was used to people seeing right through him. The man on the road was looking in his direction and waving. He was intrigued.

Loktak's frst thought was that the man was waving at someone behind him. But he was sitting on the top of a high building and there could be no one behind him; so the man on the road was waving at him, which in turn meant that he could see Loktak. But how could that be?

The man was still waving at him, unmindful of the traffic around him. He walked to Loktak’s side of the road, and Loktak slid down the side of the building and reached the spot where the other man was standing.

If there were any doubts in Loktak’s mind earlier, they were gone now. The man was looking at Loktak and never took his eyes off him. He seemed extremely pleased to see Loktak and his pleasure was reflected in the smile on his face.

No one said anything. One, because he had a lot to say and did not know where to begin and the other because he had nothing to say but had a lot of unanswered questions. But both knew that each was the answer to the other’s questions..

“My name was Fielder.” said the man.

“ Was??? You said was.” Loktak shot back promptly with an inquiring look in his eyes.

“Yes, you look surprised.” Fielder said with a smile. “ What was your name?”

“My name IS Loktak.” Loktak said with vehemence.

“Is??” the man who said his name was Fielder laughed, “ Isn’t it time you accepted being dead. How long have you been dead?”

“Dead…how do you know I am dead?”

The man smiled at him. “ I know because I am dead too and have been waiting for you for a long time.”

This answer somehow did not surprise Loktak, he was ready for anything. His life for the last few days had been full of so many new things that nothing surprised him. He just waited for Fielder to continue.

“I know a lot, more than anything else, I know you are my ticket to heaven.”

Loktak still didn’t know how to respond to a statement like that, so he thought it was best to stay quiet and wait for Fielder to keep talking. Fielder seemed glad to find someone to talk to. And even Loktak felt relieved that after so long there was someone who could hear him and have someone to talk to.

“It’s going to take a while to explain but what is to be done is to be done.” Fielder was silent for a while, thinking.

“Do you believe in heaven and hell?” Fielder asked. He had found a starting point.

“ I do or I used to, but if there was one, I should have been in one of those places, not stuck here between heaven and hell.” Loktak replied truthfully. His belief in the concept of hell and heaven had been shaken. Though a part of him was immensely relieved that he had not been taken to hell for ending his life.

“Believe it or not, there is a heaven and there is a hell. And all of us do go there, some sooner than others. It is for no reason that despite their differences, all religions, contain within themselves, a concept of a heaven and hell, Swarag and Narak, call them what you will…”

“Why, then, I am here, not there?” Loktak broke in impatiently.

“I am not finished. Am I?” Fielder gave him a long hard stare and Loktak was awed into silence. Fielder continued, “As the religions tell us every deed of ours is recorded and classified as good or bad, then when we die, according to where we stand, we get assigned to either heaven or hell. That is how it is for most people but in rare circumstances, the list is evened out, the good and the bad acts of a person balance each other and then one has no where to go. You then neither go to hell nor to heaven, but stay right where you were--on this earth”

Loktak began to get an idea of the direction in which fielder was leading him. So, was he one of the few people who had an evened out good deed-bad deed list? He stayed silent and let Fielder complete what he had begun.

“Now, this does not happen very often, and when it does it happens to only one person at one time, but for a brief interval, there are two people like that. In this case: you and me.”

There was silence again as fielder stopped talking and was looking at Loktak.

“ So what next?” Loktak asked.

“My narrating the whole story to you, like I have, will be counted as a good deed for me and I will go to the place they call heaven. You will have to wait till the next person who is like us comes along and then you tell him this, and move to heaven. I know this because this was told to me by the guy before me.”

“How long do I have to wait?”

“I can’t say.”

“How long did you wait?’

“A long time is all you should know.” Fielder said, with a smile, “Just be careful that you don’t happen to do something that may be counted as a bad deed, though a lot will change, and a lot of things that were thought of as bad in your life before will not count. as bad anymore.”

“So I might get to hell.”

“Well as far as I was told, no one like us has gone to hell yet, but yes there is always that chance.”

“ What all can I do? Can I talk to people, can I do things like before?”

Fielder laughed. “I am sure you have a lot of questions but I think it is best if you find your answers for yourself as you go along. If nothing else, it will give you something to do and you will need that”, he said.

He had hardly finished the last sentence when he disappeared, just disappeared as if he had never existed. Loktak was left in doubt as to the existence of Fielder. But he was sure he wasn’t dreaming and there was no other way to explain what had happened to him in the last few days.Also, it seemed, just as Fielder had explained, that his deed must have been noticed and he must have been called to heaven. Loktak was happy for him and hoped that his turn to go came soon too.