The Gift

The dining table was just long enough to seat 4 people, but he was eating alone. He adjusted his spectacles which were huge enough for his 11 year old small face. He was quiet. In fact he was disturbingly quiet. The only sound in the room came from the ceiling fan above him. The Tube light blinked as if it could die any moment.

He was eating pan cakes with maple syrup poured over it. The syrup tasted bad as it had crossed the expiry date. But still he remained thankful to god for the pan cakes. Next time he reminded himself to pray for fresh maple syrup as well. By this time kids in the neighborhood usually play baseball or hide and seek, but they ignored him. They always did and they called him freak as well. At this young age he had learned to avoid taking things too personal and just ignored them. He was better off without them.

Suddenly it happened and it startled him. The door opened although he remembered closing it. The man who came inside the house looked at him. He looked at him as if he could eat him alive. He was roughly the age of his father whom he never remembered seeing, talking or feeling. His dark robe and bloodshot eyes made him look dangerous, sinister and harmful. He had seen him couple of times and every time he did, he got a sick feeling in his stomach. He had avoided him deliberately, but that man won’t listen. There was some connection between them, he sensed.

He came quietly in to the room and sat on the nearby chair.

"You see to be afraid of me" the man said.

"What makes you think that?" the boy asked

"You run away when you see me."

"There are so many things to run away from. What makes you think I run from you?"

"I see the fear in your eyes."

"Hmm...what do you see now?"

"An interest. Don’t you want to know who I am?"

"Should I know it?"

"Shouldn’t you?"

"I don’t. It could only be trouble for you."

"Why is that?"

"Because then you may have to face the inevitable."

"And what is the inevitable?"

"The truth."

"Truth? What truth?"

The boy hesitated. Maybe he had gone too far. He knew it the moment he had seen him and that is why he avoided contact with him. He did not want to break away the man's little happiness or whatever hope he had left in him. It was in such moments he realized how badly truth hurts. He wished he was mute or deaf or blind or altogether. He could have been much happier and not go through this whole trauma. Seems that the time had come.

"You want to know?" the boy asked

"Yes."

"You are dead." the boy paused "And you still don’t know it."

The man gasped. The boy pointed to his left side where he saw stab marks and blood stains on his shirt. The man thought that it was a nightmare..a bizarre nightmare….but realized that it a bitter truth to swallow.

"How d-d-do you k-know it?" the man whimpered as he asked.

The boy had done this before when asked by similar people. He hated telling it and wished he could die. It was his gift. It was his curse.

"Because I see dead people." He knew that he wouldn’t need to speak after that. The pan cakes had gone cold.....and so had he.

P.S: Shyamalan must have been a genius to make an entire movie based on this one little twist :-)