Tales from Beyond (continued)

The room looked vaguely familiar. She could picture it the way it must have looked in the past. A cosy room with high ceilings, large windows with curtains of a floral print in white and blue billowing in the gentle breeze. There is a large comfortable tan colored sofa in the corner, and a couple of matching upholstered chairs. There's a painting of a hunt? a tiger hunt? A European man with a rifle sitting atop an elephant with his entourage of attendants. There's a young woman sitting in one of the chairs knitting, an expression of serene contentment on her face. A young man sits on the chair opposite, reading, puffing away at a pipe completely engrossed in the book. A picture of happy domesticity. The shrill ring of the telephone startled Sushma back to reality. As she picked up the receiver the person at the other end had hung up. Sushma was in a daze. How had she imagined this room in such vivid detail? Was it just her imagination or had she been here before? She was suddenly very excited. She had this intense urge to explore.