One sleepy afternoon in June of 2010, I made a terrifying discovery. Momma was asleep in her bedroom downstairs, and I myself was propped on an armchair reading this new book that I had got my hands upon. Pet Sematary by Stephen King. I had never heard of this author before. The very reason of picking that book from a stall at the annual book fair the previous month was that it had a cat on its cover with gruesome shades. My intellect convinced me about the capability of the book to make me love my own cat, Ginzo, even more.

The discovery I made that afternoon filled one half of me with curiosity and shook the other half with terror. As a norm, Ginzo was pacing around, making rounds of the entire house. But as soon as I began reading from that Stephen King book, – and I was habituated to read aloud – Ginzo came running and sat near me to listen to me reading it. I tried this for the rest of the day and I was surprised to discover that never mind how softly I read, and never mind he would be in the garden and I in my room upstairs, as soon as I began reading the book, he made a way to reach me. It could not only be the sound of me reading which appeared to summon him, but he actually understood the narration. I concluded it from the fact that whenever I read a paragraph containing a scary scene, Ginzo’s brown fur spiked in goosebumps and his eyes shone bright green. Or, perhaps I was fantasising all this—perhaps. This, though frightened me, made me even gladder on my decision of picking that book up from the fair.

That evening, Daddy brought chicken lollipops which I and Ginzo shared. At night, before going to sleep, I read ten pages from the book to him which he listened with utmost attention. After all, the story was about a cat—a cat that gets killed and buried at a cemetery made for pets, from where he gets his life back a day after the burial.

At last I closed the book and went to sleep. Ginzo kept tickling me in the face with his paw for a long time, as if requesting me to complete reading the novel to him that night. I promised to complete it the next day (only twenty pages were left now) and hugged him to sleep. My eyes partially opened in the dead of the night when I heard him mewing. His voice was filled with melancholy, as if midnight breeze had brought some bad news which Ginzo could not endure. I slept hugging him even tighter.

The next morning brought the unexpected. ‘No person should attach his heart to something so much that he cannot live in peace when it is gone,’ grandmother used to say. This thought helped me a lot. But still my eyes continuously flowed till evening, and I did not eat the whole day. How could I? How could I even let a single morsel of meal slip down my throat without sharing a part of it with my dear Ginzo. How could I forget that he was insisting on completing the story at night and I had rejected him? I was not aware that he had been made aware of the fact by the mighty air that he would live no longer. My body remained unresponsive and my almost numb. My mind played one single thought over and over again, almost like a video which gets stuck at a point. The same thought –

I get up in the morning to find no trace of Ginzo in my room. I find the window open and get up abruptly to peek outside. There lies my cat, my Ginzo, on the road; his legs twisted at unnatural angles, half of his mouth smiling, and eyes missing from the sockets. I run downstairs, out on the road. By the time I reach there, a van passes and crushes one of his limbs to nearly flatten it. He does not cry. I hug his lifeless body and pass out.

Daddy took him away after I had fallen asleep due to excessive crying. He got him buried somewhere. I begged him to tell me where he had taken him but he did not. I then slept till midnight at a stretch.

When I got up at night, I found myself equipped with a fantastic idea. The plan was simple and was based on the discovery of the day before. Whenever I read Pet Sematary, Ginzo used to make way to come to me. And so, without wasting a moment, I got off my bed and grabbed the book. Its cover looked different now. It appeared mighty and alive. I began reading first of the last twenty pages louder than usual. Nothing happened for a long time. It was only on the eleventh last page that he came. The window panes shuddered, and jumped into the room my dear Ginzo. How he jumped right into the room on the first floor was beyond me. His fur was muddy. His eyes did not shine, because there was no eye in the sockets anymore. Only darkness, and emptiness—upon his body and his soul. He listened to the story as I read with half fear, half glee. I knew that it was a grave mistake. I shouldn’t have summoned the dead. Bulbs flickered, fan made noise as I read; and the only thing that remained motionless was the cat.

As I narrated the final sentence of the story, he jumped out right from the window he had come. I ran and tried locating him but couldn’t. That was the last time I saw my cat, and the last time I read that book.

If you ever get a chance to read Pet Sematary, make sure no cat listens to you. They get addicted.