Humayun looks around and sees that his thatched house has shrunk into a little box. One side of it has risen up, and the bed is slanting against it as if it will slide on to the floor, and then keep sliding down until it slips beneath the thatch wall and sinks into the river.

Humayun is no longer surprised. Bizarre things are happening in his life all the time these days. He turns on to his side.

Now the ghosts come. They crowd Humayun, surround him on all sides. One of them says, 'Humayun, you filed a case against us. We'll slit your throat and throw you in the Madhumati river.'

Immediately two others them cry out loud in unison, 'We need your house and land.'

Humayun turns over to the other side and spies a knife, a sickle, and a Chinese axe gleaming in the sunlight. He responds in a quavering voice, 'I have commando training.'

The ghosts start to whisper among themselves. Humayun makes a noise to chase them away, but it's not an easy job to chase away ghosts. They enter his head and start a terrible clamour: sharpen their knives, bang their swords, noisily drive trains, jhakkar, jhakkar, shunt goods trains back and forth on the tracks, piercingly blow whistles, cut up people whooping all the while, then throw their corpses into the waters of the Rupsha river.

The ghosts wickedly shout, 'Humayun!' But no sound seems to come from Humayun's throat.

At that very moment, in the middle of the silent and lonely afternoon, the postman knocks on Humayun's door and asks for a glass of water. He hands Humayun an envelope and asked for tips. The boy bursts out when Humayun hands him five Takas: 'Are you giving alms to a beggar? Give me twenty Takas!'

Humayun feels embarrassed. In spite of his desperate financial straits, he isn't a miser. Unfortunately, he doesn't have any more money. He offers the postman some chira and gur. The postman throws back his head and grits his teeth: 'Do you think I'm a beggar?' He leaves the room stamping his feet on the ground. Humayun opens the envelope and reads the letter.

'Dear Mr Humayun, after we published a report in our newspaper about your sad situation, an expatriate Bengali in London sent some money for you to us. We would be grateful if you could kindly come and collect it.'

Humayun puts the letter in his front pocket, stretches himself and lies down again. Again, flocks of ghosts enter his head. The waters of the Madhumati rise, the sky takes a deep breath and comes down to squat on its heels. Humayun lies flat on the creaky bed. He murmurs to himself, 'I was a commander. Prime Minister Tajuddin shook hands with me. The commander of sector number nine, Major Jalil, once danced in joy holding me on his shoulders. The Indian Air Force sent a helicopter for me. I walked over bags of gold belonging to the Biharis in Khalishpur. The manager of Khulna Paper Mills gave me his jeep. Somebody took the jeep for a little while, but never returned it. I have no regrets. Somebody once played with my gold-handled revolver, put it in his pocket and left with it, I don't remember who. Never counted up the money gained and the money lost (I lost my father)...'

The pye-dog barks in the empty courtyard. The motherless calf cries out hungrily. The dead jasmine flowers have dried out to thatch, they lie like pieces of straw. Yellow leaves fall on the dead pond. The cruel airless afternoon watches silently. Humayun turns over again and goes to sleep on his side.

2.
With fifty crisp fifty-taka notes in his hand, thirty-two years after he surrendered his guns, Humayun now feels the urge to buy a pistol. He wants to kill the ghosts with this pistol, the ghosts that want to evict him from his home, from whose attacks only Fate has ensured that he has narrowly escaped thrice before. He can't get any peace. He is going to blow away the skulls of those ghosts one by one. Their disturbances have forced him to send his wife and only daughter of nine years to another village.

But Humayun knows that it is now peacetime. There is no war going on in the country. There are courts; there is a rule of law. But even if they fail to protect him, Humayun can't use the pistol to protect himself. The custodians of the law will chain him and take him away if he uses it. The honourable judge will sentence him accordingly in the name of establishing the rule of law. What will happen to his nine-year-old little girl? Humayun feels helpless.

Putting the money in the secret pocket of his trousers, Humayun goes out of the house. A sudden hot breeze burns his eyes and face. It awakens the fear of the ghosts in his mind, and he straightens up. Sweat starts to gather on his temple, and the skin on his strong, forty-six-year-old hand gradually become wet. In the blinding sunlight, he suspects every person on the road to be a ghost. He remembers the pistol--that little golden-handled pistol.

Humayun walks on carefully. First he thinks of walking just like any other ordinary man, but the very next moment changes his mind. He marches forward like a soldier, with his back straight and hands hanging on both sides. But his fear doesn't leave him, pads softly behind him like a hyena. Humayun knows for certain that at any moment the ghosts will leap on him.

At the mouth of the underpass, a bus, failing to run him over by a whisker, goes by shame-faced. Humayun turns his neck to see the driver grinning at him, showing all his teeth. He goes down the stairs of the underpass cursing the driver. There's very little light here--the ghosts have destroyed the lights. The underpass is justly a tunnel for them--everybody here is a ghost. Humayun walks fast--he wants to get out of here and into the sunlight. Unfortunately, his time is up: Three ghosts surround him right in the middle of the underpass, where it is the darkest and most fearful. Humayun comes to a halt. His nine-year-old daughter's face floats up in front of him, the same way he had recalled his mother's face when Pakistani gunboats and machine guns had barked in the Pashur River in the Sundarban forests.

One ghost brings out a glittering knife. Another, while putting its hands in its pockets and baring its teeth, says, 'Miah bhai, out with the money.' All of a sudden, just when the third ghost opens its mouth to say something, Humayun, suddenly again a commando after thirty-two years, grabs the wrist of the ghost who holds the knife, spins around and twists it. Using his knees and both hands he jams the wrist and breaks the ghost's hand with a cracking sound. The ghost gives out a heart-rending scream. The knife falls out of its hands with a clatter and bounces three times on the concrete floor. The other two ghosts slap their bums twice and quickly run out from the underpass. People rush towards Humayun; 'Bravo, Bravo,' they shout joyously. Humayun lifts the ghost with the broken hand onto his shoulders like a newly-slaughtered goat and climbs up the stairs. 'Here, take him,' he says, breathing heavily, to the law-enforcing officer standing at the mouth of the underpass.

'Good God!' shouts the law-enforcing officer, 'What in heavens name have you done? This man is dying!'

The crowd of people spring on the ghost with the broken hand. They tear his body into pieces and then leave, each in his own direction.

'You come with me now,' orders the law-enforcing officer. Humayun runs and jumps into a passing bus. The law-enforcing officer takes out his walkie-talkie and reprimands a nearby colleague. The Pegasus Bus speeds Humayun towards Gabtoli.

3.
Evening falls on the Alphadanga market. The ghosts of the day go to sleep. The ghosts of the night stretch their hands, yawn and crack the joints of their hands and feet.

Humayun gets off the bus and steps inside Sikander's shop for a glass of water. Sikander smiles at him. 'Mia Bhai, you're now famous. You also have some money now, so why don't you pay off your debts?' Sikander's words travel with the air, and creditors flock to Humayun, who takes the money out from the secret pocket of his trouser and starts to pay off his debts. Humayun owes Sikander ten thousand takas, Ibrahim seven thousand, Sulaiman three thousand, Belal seven hundred, Azimuddin five hundred, and Mujibur three hundred...Humayun freely distributes the money like a zamindar. There's a satisfaction in his smile, joy always floods his soul when he gives something to somebody. After paying the creditors at hand, Humayun was left with three thousand takas. He starts to walk back to his house.

All of a sudden the lights go out. An owl screeches harshly. The sound of a bat's wings mingled with that of his own footsteps startles Humayun. He turns and calls out, 'Sikander.' There is no response. Humayun starts to walk back towards Sikander's shop. Two ghosts come out of the dark and stand in front of him. They put their hands in Humayun's armpit, hold his hands in theirs and force him to walk to an even darker place.

They reach a house along with Humayun. Four ghosts are playing cards on a table. The whole room is dark with smoke-- the ghosts are smoking cigarettes. On the wall, a clock ticks.

Out comes from the next room an officer ghost with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

'Please come in, Humayun Miah. Courageous freedom fighter, naval commando Humayun Kabir. Please come in, take a seat. Let's settle your case. Hey there, bring in Pari.'

A young female ghost with an overripe figure walks out from the next room. Scarlet-lipped and chubby-cheeked. With a red ribbon in her hair and a hostile look in her eyes. She swings her heavy hips as she walks over and sits down on a stool. She looks at Humayun and again there is anger in her eyes.

The officer ghost looks at Humayun and laughs, his teeth like big shovels.

Humayun murmurs, 'What's the matter?'

'She is a witness in your case. A very difficult case, as you can easily understand.'

'It's a false case.'

'That we know.'

'Can you tell me why you have brought me here like this?'

'Can't you understand why?'

'No. Explain it to me.'

'There's no point in explaining anything. We are very hungry, we want to eat you.'

With that, yelling and whooping, seven ghosts fall on Humayun, tear him from limb to limb and eat him. Afterwards, they belch and go to sleep.

Mashiul Alam is a short story writer who works for Prothom Alo newspaper. Asrar Chowdhury teaches Economics at Jahangirnagar University.