GHOST IN MY BATHROOM

I had just finished taking
bath and had barely put on my trousers when this
happened. Out of thin air
and in birthday suit,
materialised a man in my
bathroom. He resembled
Bertrand Russell but looked younger. He was sitting on something
which I thought was a lawnmower.
The only thing he was wearing was a smile.

He came off the machine and offered me his hand for a how-do-you-do. I panicked.

" G-H-O-S-T . . ." I shrieked.

He brought out a sleek
transparent blue glass
revolver and trained it at
me.

" If you shout again I shall
liquify you" he said in a
metallic voice. I thought he meant 'liquidate'.

My mother-in-law was
already on the other side
of the bathroom door. Even in this hour of crisis I was averse to seeking
her help. She had unilaterally positioned herself in my house for the past two years and all my efforts to dislodge her had failed.

" Rajneesh! Are you
alright?" she asked and
then muttered something
unprintable.

" so that is the mother-in-
law " The ghost observed
and told me even her
name.

That reminded me again of his presence and I opened my mouth to
shout.

" G-H-O- . . . " I had barely started when he fired from his glass revolver. A beam of white rays hit me on the face and I found that I had lost
my voice.

" Idiot! I am not a ghost."
he said and then extending his left arm, he
asked me to feel his hand.

Nervously I brought my
hand close to his. He
grabbed it and pumped it a number of times.

" How do you do ! I am
John Pfafe from the
'Nuclear Express' group of
newspapers. I have come
all the way from the twenty third century to
interview you. I have to
write a staff article on "The effect of a resident mother-in-law on a twentieth century male".

My mother-in-law was banging the door.

"Rajneesh open the
door. Are you committing
suicide", she asked hopefully. As I had lost my voice I could not say a
word. He ignored her and
explained to me the
concept of travelling in
time.

" who is there inside the
bathroom". My mother-in-law shouted and started banging the door very
hard, "what is going on inside. I am calling the
police".

"Let us go outside", said
the "Nuclear Express" man."It is impossible to
converse here".

He suddenly yanked open
the door. As my mother-in-law was resting her ninetyeight kilogram body
on the bathroom door in order to catch the conversation, she neatly
tumbled into the bathroom. Before
she could recover, John Pfafe had pulled me out of the bathroom and firmly shut the door. And bolted it.

"That's is much better", he observed,"now we shall go to another
room and talk".

He pressed the lever of a
small box hanging from his waist and my voice was restored.

Suddenly there was a
strange and faint electronic drone from the bathroom and this guy
panicked. He rushed into the bathroom and I followed him in.

The mother-in-law was
missing and the machine
too !

"your lawnmower" I
exclaimed, "It is not there".

"IDIOT" he shrieked " that
was my TIME MACHINE".

And then he suddenly
became demoralised, "how will I go back now!"

And he has not been able
to go back yet. It is now
three months since my
mother-in-law dissappeared for good with his Time Machine. He keeps sitting outside the
bathroom door and says
that he must go to the
twenty third century.

I have firmly told him that we are all going to the twentyfirst century. But
he listens not !!
(a copyright article of mine published way back in the twentieth century)