Chapter 5: The Phantom Limb

Chapter 5: The Phantom Limb

The physics exam was an exercise in absurdity. Arjun sat in a vast, echoing hall in Malda, a cheap pen clutched in his hand, and stared at questions about Newtonian motion and thermodynamics. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. He almost laughed, a hysterical sound that died in his throat. What was the equal and opposite reaction to a sentient train that ate its passengers? What were the laws of physics that governed a smile that hung in the dark or an arm given as compensation for a devoured soul?

He moved through the questions in a fog. The numbers and symbols on the page were a foreign language, a relic from a life he’d lived only yesterday. His mind wasn’t on vectors or velocities; it was in the wet, fleshy carriage, replaying the CRUNCH of his father’s bone, the spray of blood, the cheerful offer of tea. He wrote answers by rote, his academic training a ghost guiding his hand while his spirit huddled in a corner, shivering. He finished, handed in the paper, and walked out into the indifferent sunshine, not knowing or caring if he had passed. The true test was waiting for him in a sterile, silent hospital wing.

He found his father sitting up in a stark white bed. The clinical smell of antiseptic fought a losing battle against the faint, phantom scent of ozone and cold meat that clung to them both. Bimal was staring at his left arm, which lay atop the white sheets, swathed in thick bandages from shoulder to wrist.

Dr. Ghosh stood at the foot of the bed, reviewing a chart. "A remarkable success," the surgeon said, his voice as flat and emotionless as ever. "The neuro-vascular bundles have integrated perfectly. The graft has taken."

Graft. The word was so clean, so medical. It was a lie. This wasn't a graft; it was a reparation, a pound of flesh paid by a monster.

"When can we go home?" Arjun asked, his voice hoarse.

"He is stable," Dr. Ghosh replied, not looking up. "Mobility will return in time. Though some… anomalies in proprioception are to be expected with a graft of this nature." He finally met Arjun's gaze, his grey eyes cold and empty. "The Line has settled its account. Your bill has been paid in full."

With a final, curt nod, the doctor left, his footsteps echoing down the unnervingly silent corridor.

Arjun sat on the edge of the bed. "Baba?"

Bimal didn't answer at first. He slowly, hesitantly, turned his head. The terror in his eyes had been replaced by a hollow, haunted exhaustion. He looked like a man who had stared into the abyss and found the abyss staring back from inside his own body.

"It's cold, Arjun," Bimal whispered, his voice raspy. He was looking at his bandaged arm. "So cold."

Hesitantly, Arjun reached out and laid his hand over the bandages on his father’s new forearm. A shock ran through him. Beneath the layers of gauze, the limb was icy, not with the chill of poor circulation, but with the profound, dead cold of a slab of marble in a crypt. It felt utterly alien, a piece of some other, colder world fused to his father’s warm, living body.

They were discharged that afternoon. No paperwork, no bills, just a placid nod from the smiling nurse as they walked out into a world that no longer felt real. The journey back to Chhayagarh on a rickety, overcrowded bus was a silent one. Every clatter of the engine, every whistle from a distant factory, made Bimal flinch, his eyes wide with a familiar terror.

Back in their small mud-walled house, the familiar setting felt tainted, violated. That night, Arjun helped his father change the dressing. As he unwrapped the gauze, the arm was revealed. The skin was pale, unnervingly smooth, a stark contrast to his father's dark, weathered flesh. The line where it joined his shoulder was a faint, pinkish scar that was already fading with unnatural speed. And there, on the forearm, was the crude black tattoo of the scorpion, a permanent brand marking it as a piece of stolen property.

His father stared at it, his breath hitching. "It doesn't feel like mine."

Arjun had no words of comfort. He cleaned the non-existent wound and re-wrapped the arm, his hands trembling. How could he comfort a man haunted by his own limb?

A week passed. A letter arrived confirming Arjun had passed his exam with flying colours; his scholarship to the college in Kolkata was secure. The news landed with a dull thud, a victory from a war that no longer mattered. His father was recovering his strength, but his spirit was eroding. He rarely spoke. He would sit for hours, staring into space, his right hand gripping his new left bicep as if trying to strangle it.

The true horror began in the quiet moments.

One afternoon, Arjun walked in to find his father asleep in his chair. Bimal was still, but the new hand was not. The fingers were moving, flexing and clenching in a slow, rhythmic pattern. They traced shapes in the air, grasping at nothing, the scorpion on the forearm seeming to writhe with the motion. It was like watching a large, pale spider tethered to his father's shoulder.

The whispers started soon after. Arjun would find his father sitting in the dark, muttering to himself. "It's hungry," Bimal would say, his eyes wide and unfocused. "It remembers the taste." "What remembers, Baba?" Arjun would ask, his own blood running cold. "The arm," his father would choke out, cradling the limb as if it were a venomous snake. "It hears the whistle when I sleep. It wants to go back to the tracks."

The breaking point came late one night. Arjun was jolted from a restless sleep by a faint, rhythmic sound. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap. It was a frantic, irregular beat, a sound he vaguely recognized but couldn't place. He got up and padded into the main room.

His father was standing by the shuttered window, his back to the room. He was motionless, a dark silhouette against the moonlit wood. The new arm, however, was alive. The pale hand was pressed against the window frame, the fingers drumming a frantic, complex rhythm on the wood. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.

It was the ticking of the Conductor's pocket watch.

Arjun felt the air leave his lungs. His father was a puppet, and this phantom limb was the string. It was a beacon, a receiver, a direct line back to the horror they had tried to leave behind.

"Baba?" he whispered, his voice trembling.

Bimal turned slowly. His face was a mask of sheer terror in the moonlight. Tears streamed down his weathered cheeks. He looked at Arjun, then down at the alien arm attached to his body, which continued its frantic, silent ticking against the wood.

"It won't let me go, son," his father wept, his voice cracking with despair. "I am still on the train. We both are."

Arjun stared at the pale hand, at the scorpion tattoo, at the fingers that tapped out a rhythm from a nightmare. He had passed his exam. He had his ticket out. But he saw the truth with sickening clarity. There was no escape. The Chhayagarh Line had not just taken his father's arm. It had left a part of itself behind, a phantom limb that had followed them home, a constant, ticking reminder that the fare was never, ever paid in full.