(Jeans)
[Disclaimer : All names, characters and incidents in this story are completely imaginary occurring in a fictional locale. Any resemblance to any real-life incident(s) and/or character(s) is purely accidental.]
“Now, Sanya, tell me what’s bothering you. I am the only one who – what were you going to say?” says Vivant settling back in the plush seats of the corner café. It is a cubicle with just enough privacy without being too cosy. He has largely regained his sang-froid (or so he thinks). He pulls his phone out of his pocket and holding it under the table, shoots off a quick text to his boss.
Also Read: The Mysterious Case of The Goddess Jeans: Part 1
“Will walk in late today. On the trail of something HOT.” Fire emoji. Dog emoji.
“No issues. Take the morning off. Want good story at EOD.” Marcus’s reply is almost instantaneous.
“Thank god there are no shiny surfaces here!” he thinks, pocketing his phone. He looks at the girl taking a sip from her steaming cup.
“First of all, it’s Sanaya, not Sanya. Second, you can only see them as reflections, off glass or polished surfaces, right?” she says. (Jeans)
“Sorry, what…? H-How do you know that?!” he gasps.
“I just know.” She shrugs her elegant shoulders. “Don’t ask me how I know! One of the perks of power, I suppose.” She is staring at him again, her eyes boring into his, right through his brain into the utmost recesses of his skull.
“How do you mean – perks of power?”
She takes her phone out of her pocket, pulls up the home page of the website and hands it to him. The landing page appears at first “Unleash the Goddess in You! Reach For the Stars on the Wings of Your Power!”. Then the screen hangs for a couple of seconds and finally throws a ‘404 Page Not Found’ error.
“Well, it all has to do with my jeans. The ones I have on now. They’re evil…I am positive. And sometimes I feel – so am I. Evil. I feel like I’m playing with fire and cannot seem to stop! And some day it will consume me!” She breaks off and looks down at her legs with a lugubrious expression that is almost comical.
“Wait, what? Come again? Your jeans???” He has a distinct feeling of being trapped in a Gabriel García Marquez novel. People sprouting weird body parts. Unnatural power. A pair of perfectly ordinary, “evil” jeans. Indeed! He stifles an urge to laugh. (Jeans)
“I know! I know it sounds corny, and I still can’t believe it myself. I am a Physics teacher for chrissakes! None of this makes sense to me… why is this happening to me !!” she bursts out suddenly, setting her cup down on the saucer with a clatter, splashing half the contents on the table. A few heads turn in their direction. “Sometimes I wish I had never ever been born!!” (Jeans)
“Ok! Ok! Calm down! Tell me everything from the beginning!” Vivant looks around quickly. He snatches up a paper napkin from the holder and starts mopping up the mess on the table.
“Allow me, Sir!” a suave waiter appears at his elbow as if by magic and adroitly completes the task. He fills their glasses with water from the carafe in his hand. (Jeans)
“Would you care for a bite to eat?” Vivant asks. “I am starving.” She nods her consent, and he orders a couple of sandwiches.
“Ok. All right!” she sucks in a deep breath and pauses. “Ok, here goes,” and she pauses again. A strange, exasperated expression, yet almost wistful, spreads across her face. “Have you ever had a dream that seems so real you don’t know whether you are asleep or awake? That’s what is happening to me, I think. Or maybe it is somebody else’s dream, and I am in it. It’s just that I don’t know whose dream it is, and I sincerely hope they are enjoying it!” she sighs. (Jeans)
Vivant nods his head vigorously. “I know exactly what you mean. I have the same feeling sometimes when -” he begins.
“No, I don’t think you do,” she interrupts. “You see, it all starts when I go online to shop for a pair of new jeans a couple of months ago. My old ones are tattered. As you can see, I’m not one to spend a lot on clothes and shoes and stuff. My job pays well but not enough for luxuries or fashionable clothes, and accessories. I’m the proverbial small-town girl trying to survive in the big bad city. My parents refuse to leave our ancestral home, so I send them a sizeable portion of my earnings every month.” (Jeans)
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She pushes back a lock of her hair from her forehead with her slim fingers. “So, here I am, searching for good bargains within my budget when I come across this website www.mypowerjeans.com. It sells only women’s apparel. Here, see for yourself.”
She takes her phone out of her pocket, pulls up the home page of the website and hands it to him. The landing page appears at first “Unleash the Goddess in You! Reach For the Stars on the Wings of Your Power!”. Then the screen hangs for a couple of seconds and finally throws a ‘404 Page Not Found’ error.
He looks at her, a quizzical expression on his face. (Jeans)
“Yeah, I know. That’s what it says when I try from my phone. Now look it up on yours,” she says and waits for him to type in the URL on his phone browser.
“What the hell… !!” He holds it up for her to see: a perfectly functional website showing a full range of women’s jeans in all cuts and sizes with the latest trending accessories. No errors.
“I know. They may have put my number on a blocked list. Or perhaps they are using supercookies or pixel tags to track me! The fact is, I don’t know. All I know is that as far as I am concerned, they’ve vanished into thin air. Poof! Dropped off the face of the earth. Gone kaput.” (Jeans)
“The nightmare starts on August 25th, to be precise. I wake up in the middle of the night with a jolt. And not just an ordinary jolt. I am literally flung off my bed and onto the floor. It takes me some time to untangle myself from the bedclothes and get back into bed. The clock on my nightstand says 3:00 AM. Right at that moment, my cell phone beeps. It is a text from an unknown number. It simply states an address. The place is two blocks away from my apartment. Wrong number, I think, and prepare to go back to sleep.”
“Is there an app?”
“Nope. I have checked.”
“Have you called their customer care? This number here on top?”
“Of course, I have! I keep getting an ‘invalid number’ error.”
“Lemme try from mine.” Vivant is dialling already. “It’s ringing… here, talk to them…” he passes his phone to her. She holds the phone to her ear. After a couple of rings, a cool feminine voice answers, “MyPower Jeans Customer Care. How may I help you?”
“Hi, this is Sanaya here. I recently bought a pair of jeans online from your website, around the second week of July. I would like to report a complaint…” The decisive click on the other end cuts her off mid-sentence. She stops abruptly and looks at Vivant, her eyes furious. “And she hangs up on me! Can you believe it?!?”
She re-dials and passes the phone to him. “The number you have dialled is invalid. Please check the number and try again.” (Jeans)
“Shocker!” she retorts drily, rolling her eyes.
She continues after a pause, “Anyways, the prices are reasonable, so I go ahead and order a pair of MyPower jeans. They arrive in a week’s time. I try them on and they’re simply perfect! The diamond stud is a bit over-the-top, but I think, so what? I find myself wearing them all the time, day in and day out – at work, when I go shopping for groceries, out with friends. Even at home, I don’t want to take them off except perhaps in the shower and in bed. They feel so good, and I feel so light in them; I feel as if I am really flying. My students are electrified in my classes. My fellow teachers and Principal are amazed at my energy. I have always been a good teacher. But now I feel invincible. I feel I can do anything, teach any subject, be anyone!” (Jeans)
“I feel like a…” she trails off.
“A Goddess?” He asks.
“YES!” her oval face lights up. “And this goes on for about a month.”
“And that’s when everything goes to pot.” She takes a gulp of water and looks at Vivant. Her eyes are deep wells filled with inexplicable terror. Her lips tremble slightly. (Jeans)
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“The nightmare starts on August 25th, to be precise. I wake up in the middle of the night with a jolt. And not just an ordinary jolt. I am literally flung off my bed and onto the floor. It takes me some time to untangle myself from the bedclothes and get back into bed. The clock on my nightstand says 3:00 AM. Right at that moment, my cell phone beeps. It is a text from an unknown number. It simply states an address. The place is two blocks away from my apartment. Wrong number, I think, and prepare to go back to sleep.” (Jeans)
She pauses here, her face still as death.
“And…?” Vivant prompts gently, barely breathing. The sandwiches served by the waiter remain untouched.
“What happens next can only be seen in horror movies. Everything happens so fast… it is all a blur to me now. All I remember is that like a woman possessed, I am getting dressed, pulling on these very jeans, grabbing my door keys, slamming the front door shut, and rushing out into the night. It is as if some uncontrollable force is driving me, and I am completely in its power. Next, I am dashing through the deserted streets, past rows of sleeping houses, beneath ghostly streetlights that are whispering to me, guiding me. ‘A little farther down.’ ‘Right turn there.’ ‘Turn left here and then straight.’ (Jeans)
“Suddenly I find myself in front of a three-storey house, and I know I have reached my destination. It is the house at the corner of Redwood Street and Fern Row and the exact address in the text message. It is a residential area, and the house is set in a little wooded grove off the main road. I hear an ear-splitting scream from the second-floor bedroom window just above the front door followed by a guttural voice growling unintelligible profanities. I know something terribly wrong is happening in there and I must stop it. I leap up the front steps two at a time and pound on the door with my fists. The screaming stops abruptly. (Jeans)
“I pound on the door again. No one answers; so, I take a few steps back, rush forward and throw myself at it. I know it’s crazy, isn’t it? But as I said a demoniac strength is possessing my body. Now I know it is coming from these jeans. The door crashes inwards, and I fall in, losing my balance. Then picking myself up I literally fly up the stairs and burst into the unlocked door of the room where the terrible thing is happening.
I see a half-naked woman, in a torn silk négligée, covered in blood and bruises, cowering on the carpeted floor beside the bed. A huge gorilla of a man is towering over her with a cat o’ nine tails in his right hand. His back is towards the door.”
Sanaya pauses and covers her face with her hands. He gives her time to recover. A few minutes later she removes her hands from her face. It is drained of all blood. (Jeans)
No one knows anything. The police haven’t a clue, nor do the neighbours, although some of them think the husband has gone too far this time. But no one can explain why the rest of the room is untouched by the fire. Apart from the front door broken in, there is no other evidence of home invasion or armed robbery. No signs of struggle except for a few pieces of furniture knocked over here and there.
“The next thing I remember,” she whispers, “is a strange rustling, a beating sound like the spreading of a huge pair of wings. The man whirls around to face me, raises the hand holding his cat, and freezes. I realize that I am hovering several feet in the air above them, near the ceiling. Suddenly I feel a tremendous heat emanating from somewhere near my navel and looking down I see the fake diamond stud emitting a concentrated laser-like beam. (Jeans)
“My whole body is blazing like a furnace, and flames are shooting from every feather in my wings, every strand of my hair, and even my fingertips. A voice in my head tells me to direct the laser beam at the man and I do so. He bursts into flames. Now he is screaming horribly, running around the room helter-skelter, trying in vain to put out the fire; finally, he stumbles and falls on top of the woman on the floor. She bursts into flames too. Around ten minutes later, nothing remains of them except two charred skeletons. (Jeans)
“I don’t remember what happens next and how I get home. In the morning, I find myself collapsed on the floor of my own apartment, with a nasty burn on my right upper arm. My shirt is covered in soot with holes burnt through here and there and reeking of burnt human flesh. But these jeans…” she shudders and pauses, re-living the nightmare all over again.
“They are as spotless as on the first day I put them on. I don’t know how that is possible. I try everything I can think of to destroy them, but nothing works because this force that controls me won’t allow it. I take them to the back yard, pour kerosene on them, light a match, and throw it on top of the heap. The flames leap up at first but soon die down, leaving the damn thing intact! Not a single thread charred! Can you believe it?!? I even take them up to the rooftop, climb up the ladder on the side of the water tower, push the lid aside and drop the pants into the tank. I wait till it sinks to the bottom and replace the lid. Guess what happens after a couple of days?” she stares at him.
Vivant lifts his cup to his lips.
“I open my closet and there it is, clean and dry, folded neatly on the shelf right in front of my eyes!”
As he puts the cup back down on the saucer carefully, Vivant wonders if this is some kind of an elaborate joke. “She’s either lying or obviously suffering from some kind of delusion… a head injury, perhaps? Or some deeper childhood trauma…PTSD?”
He looks deep into her eyes, and suddenly, his head spins, for the second time this morning. For a mere millionth of a second she seems to turn into a different person altogether. And the transformation is ghastly. She is sitting absolutely still. Her eyes have become glittering augurs, drilling two holes into his own. And though it is for a fleeting second, he can almost swear that her face hardens into a cold, white mask, her lips twist in a diabolical sneer and there is an ever so slight whisper of death in her voice.
“NO! Stop right there! It’s not a delusion and I have not suffered any head injury or childhood trauma!” she snaps, her nostrils flaring in anger. “You think I’m lying, don’t you?”
“Well, I’ll be damned!” Vivant gasps when he finally finds his voice. “Did you just read my mind, verbatim??”
“Yes, I can do that. I told you a few minutes ago, don’t you remember? What is it with men!” she cries out in frustration. “They never listen!”
Vivant opens his mouth to apologise but shuts it again, just in time.
“And… a-and… there is s-something else.” She stutters and stops abruptly.
“When I see it back on my closet, I feel this horrifying exhilaration, a sudden stab of joy. As if I am glad to have it back! Do you see how fucked up this is?!?” her voice is almost shrill with desperation.
“Now, wait a minute – this address, and the date, August 25th – now I remember!” suddenly Vivant breaks in excitedly, “isn’t this the gruesome accident that has been all over the news for the last few weeks? No one knows anything. The police haven’t a clue, nor do the neighbours, although some of them think the husband has gone too far this time. But no one can explain why the rest of the room is untouched by the fire. Apart from the front door broken in, there is no other evidence of home invasion or armed robbery. No signs of struggle except for a few pieces of furniture knocked over here and there. The origin of the fire is still unknown, so nothing, neither arson nor accident, can be ruled out. No article is missing. No fingerprints, no DNA. Nothing. Clean as a whistle.”
She nods. (Jeans)
“Oh MY GOD… that is you???” His jaw drops and he stares at her aghast.
She nods again, her face haggard.
“And… and… the next one too. The 6th of September, time around 4:30 AM, as far as I can remember. The address – 29A, Jubilee Park. The same sequence repeats. I catch a father abusing his pre-teen son and what do I do?? I incinerate them both! ME! I’ve never hurt a fly in my life before this,” she whispers. “I can’t control these powers. I can’t save the innocent. Why? Why have I been given these powers if I can’t help the victims? WHY?!!? I don’t choose any of it!! Then why ME? I am a killer, a… a… monster!” (Jeans)
“Maybe, whatever this is, it chooses you.”
Slowly she rolls up both sleeves of her shirt. Two angry welts, one on her right upper arm and the other on her left forearm, stare up at him.
“I don’t know… are you sure telling me all this is a good idea?” Vivant says, after a while.
“I have to tell you.” Her voice is deep and quiet.
“Why?”
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He looks deep into her eyes, and suddenly, his head spins, for the second time this morning. For a mere millionth of a second she seems to turn into a different person altogether. And the transformation is ghastly. She is sitting absolutely still. Her eyes have become glittering augurs, drilling two holes into his own. And though it is for a fleeting second, he can almost swear that her face hardens into a cold, white mask, her lips twist in a diabolical sneer and there is an ever so slight whisper of death in her voice. It seems like a jagged edges of a bottomless pit is opening up where her face should be.
“Because, you see, you are the only person alive,” she whispers softly, “who has seen my wings.”
To Be Continued…
Photos Are Generated by AI
Prateeti is an English Lierature major from Presidency University Kolkata who took up the technology challenge without an Engineering degree in 1993 and embarked on a full-fledged technical career, becoming a RDBMS expert. She worked as the CoE Manager for Sybase products, platforms and technologies at SAP Labs India Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore. She is a great admirer of Augusta Ada King and Marie Curie.
She is also the author of ‘Green Rose Wild Earth’ a collection of poems published by StoryMirror Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
