'Eyes Like Kali'

Another first-rate story from WHA 2. Author Tanya Smith gives us a title with a classic, pulpy feel, heralding a modern, psychological tale of horror. Dr Chakrabarti is dozing during his shift at a psychiatric facility in the US. He dreams of an outcast girl in a filthy sari, a ghost who died in the filth of an Indian city. He wakes to a different kind of nightmare in the Danvers State Hospital, where he tries to do his job well in distinctly trying circumstances.

This is an intensely atmospheric, not to say hallucinatory, tale. The black eyes of the ghost-girl remind the doctor Kali, with her necklace of skulls. He is surrounded by dangerous mental patients, and violence erupts during his night shift. An image of a third eye - graffiti by a disturbed inmate - blends with dream images. Chakrabarti tries to type up his notes on a female patient who has hanged herself. The scent of jasmine and rain obtrudes, the smell of the city where the girl died.

I am not sure if this story has a message, other than the obvious one - that we are all haunted, and all to some extent culpable in the sufferings of others. Whatever the artistic intent it is a powerful piece.

More from this running review in due course. It's proving a wild ride so far.