Pandora's book

Pandora's box contained all the evils of mankind - greed, vanity, slander, envy, pining and hope. Zeus instructed Pandora not to open the box but she was too curious and opened it. After the jar was opened all of the evils escaped and, after the lid was replaced, only hope remained in the jar. Now what is Pandora’s book?

I was a teacher at a reputed school. Miss Camilla Arthur, they used to address me and I was supposedly one of the best teachers around until one day, when an accident towards the end of the year crippled me. I lost my job and for almost a year, I was bed ridden.

It was at that time when I discovered the writer in me. I started to write short stories. Most of them are published in major dailies, and a few more have been adapted into blockbuster Hollywood movies. But I have always wanted to write a masterpiece. In the quest for a new theme and peace of mind, I embarked on a journey to our family cottage.

The cottage is located deep within the woods, and I had to walk for a distance of about 4 KM into the woods. I parked my car at a nearby gas station and proceeded to walk on feet. It was late in the night when I had to light my torch and kept on walking. Suddenly a hard bound leather cover caught my attention. I picked it up and the title read, ‘The Pandora’s Book’ and I carried it along, to the cottage.

The same night under a reading lamp, I started to read the book. It was a manuscript but it was beautifully written. The very first lines read ‘This is the Pandora’s book. Don’t open the book and make the same mistake committed by Pandora’.

‘Crap..’ I thought and continued to read on for some time.

There was a party going on in the nearby farm house. It was so disturbing that I couldn’t sleep and so I picked up the axe and started to walk towards the place. They were more than surprised to see a woman approaching them, beautifully dressed but with an axe in the hand.

Holding the wooden part of the axe, with my fingers constantly gripping the handle and with one feet falling into the place from where I removed the other, I walked slowly like a cat and neared them.

With the curly locks falling over my face and head bent down, they were not able to see my face. One guy emptied the contents of the beer can onto my curly locks. And I raised my axe like a lumbar jack and ‘thud’ his headless body fell to the ground.

‘What the hell are you doing miss’, one guy shouted and was trying to pulling out a gun, when I sprang towards him with the axe and raised it with full fury from underneath him and he fell to the ground like an apple split into two halves.

One more guy ran up to me swirling a pen knife. Picking up two butcher knives, I moved left and turned right with my head still bent down and flung them across, which instantly made their way out of the guy’s neck and hit the wooden wall behind like flying darts.

Panic gripped the other fellas and a few of them were able to escape except for another brave guy who removed a revolver from his pocket and fired a shot at me. Luckily the bullet hit the mast head of my axe and the impulse almost made me drop the axe from my hand when it rotated vertically with the handle revolving across my palm and returned to the original position and I gripped it once again. I started to run away and suddenly turned back throwing the axe at full force onto the guy, and he hit the wall with the axe fixing him onto it, through his head.

I went close to him and picked up the axe and raised my head suddenly that my hair fell back and I started to laugh out loud, sadistically. In all 13 people were slain to death, and blood dripped slowly from the iron head of the axe and I walked back to the cottage.

‘Wonderful story of the spree killer, very gory though’ I thought as I closed the book and it was time for me to sleep, ‘let me continue with the story later on’

I was tossing and turning on the bed. I was unable to sleep as I have left the story unfinished. ‘Let me complete the story and then go to sleep’ I thought and walked back to the table to switch on the reading lamp, when my eye caught something interesting.

I was gripped in fear when I saw an axe lying in the corner of the room. Focusing the reading lamp, I looked around the room to find out if someone had sneaked in. As I went near the axe, I found that it was old and rusted and I heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Phew, must be an old axe lying around, man this story caught onto my nerves’ I smiled at my idiocy and proceeded towards the reading table.

I started to read the remaining part of the book. As I reached the last page, I was shocked to see a line. I ran my fingers over the page and felt the book. I pushed the table lamp and other things on the table and fell on my feet.

‘What’s there in the last page…’

‘What’s there in the last page Miss Camilla Arthur…’ One more question, I heard from behind. And the inanimate and mute audience in the class started discussing.

I pulled my locks back with one hand and said ‘It was signed, Camilla Arthur….’

And even before the entire class could come out of the shock and disbelief, I walked towards them with an axe in my hand…