The Dream Of Palak Paneer

By Sunishka

Heights, spiders ,clowns and the dark. We’ve all been darn scared of

silly things in childhood. And sometimes fears show up in weird places

right? Like my friend who was absolutely terrified of santa claus! The

audaucity to scream and run away when a strange fat old man tries to

offer you candy (her mum raised her right) . For me the weirdest of

fears showed up in the semi lucid dreams which I lost half my braincells

to. This fear set in at the arrival of winter at my sweet abode when our

kitchen was filled with ten kinds of leaves that I had to consume or

else…

SCENE 1

I sat behind a huge billboard on a pile of large stones. Besides me sat a

girl , in standard NPC fashion. The sky was dark and morbid . Then

suddenly without trigger warning, this ghoulish, ugly ah zombie makes

his way to us. But then of course this animated hero enters on cue to

save the damsels and give us a scripted warning: ‘’Dark times are

arriving . Remember! Never ask a zombie his name…otherwise you shall

be doomed. A zombie apocalypse was raging huh; but I was all sorted. I

made plans to go home and hide in the broom closet on the terrace.

Did you lose braincells yet? No? Aight go on then…

SCENE 2

Glass splatters and flies everywhere, people scream because zombies

duh! I make my way upstairs to the terrace and frantically search for

the blue lays packet I had bought yesterday but it failed to make an

appearance in my stupid dream. Resigning to my fate I head to the

broom closet to peacefully sit out whatever the zombie situation was.

But oh not so fast broski you underestimated the creativity of my

slumber spells. I hear footsteps and lo and behold its anotherrrr ya you

guessed it …ZOMBIE . I stumble and take a step back and then I felt the

awkwardness in air yk. So I politely asked him ‘’Wh-what is your

name?’’ That foul creature accelerated towards me and pushed me to

the railing. I had no other option than to jump. I held on to the railing ,

questioning the more fun way to die(zombie or skull splitting? Zombie

or…) And that’s when I notice a thick bubbling green liquid waiting

below to boil me alive. This scene instilled the greatest fear ive ever

felt to this day(Zombies? Pfff). I looked up one last time to hear the

zombie’s scratchy voice say ‘’My name is Paalak’’ And then I fell. Into

my mom’s favourite winter dish. Yes I absolutely hate paalak ka saag.

But for the love of my life, I would never disrespect paalak ever again.

Eat your greens guys…before they creep up and eat you instead.