Sleepless in Kalamasery

Yesterday night, I started reading somethings over the net and it scared me so shitless that I did not sleep till the sun came up. Damn. Let me explain what it was that I read and why it scared me.

First off, I stumbled onto a site which have Top 10 lists, but unlike cracked.com, these lists were not all jokes. So, the first entry was top 10 missing people or something. The whole list had ppl who were in a happy nice life with loved ones and one day suddenly dissappeared. It is not known what happened to them. Were they murdered? Were they in hiding? What frightened me is that, a lot of things that happen around us maybe a mystery, a we don't care. But when that mystery is about our loved ones, what then? How can we sleep, not knowing what happened?


One of the items was about the captain of a ship, Marie Celeste. Relating to ship I was intrigued and off I went to wikipedia to read about the "greatest" maritime mystery. This ship was a cargo ship with 7 crew and 2 pax- the capt's wife & daughter. It was carrying a cargo of 1700 barrels of alcahol. The thing is, it was later found near mediterranean drifting slowly. On inspection, it was empty, lifeless, without a single crew or passenger aboard. Everthing was in its place, nothing was stolen, there was no sign of struggle or damage and the ship was very much sea worthy. So what happened?

Another thing was the story of Anne Frank. She is very famous, but I've never delved deep into her life story. Until now. How I reached her? Again listverse, I was reading about recently discovered old Photos. These showed people in their prime, who are no longer with us today. It's a depressing thought, especially at a time in our life (the 20s) where we consider ourselves immortal. Anyway, it had a photo of Peter Schiff, the crush of Anne. That sent me on a journey of Rediscover Anne Frank.

She wrote a diary from age of 12 to 14 in the 1940. It chronicles her life in Nazi Germany while being a Jew. She and her family and some friends hid out in a building owned by her father for two years. Two years without seeing sunlight or running around in the outside world. Then they were 'betrayed' and were sent to the concentration camps. The stories of Life in these concentration camps are what gets to me. She was first seperated from her father and then later her mother. Her sister was very sick, and thinking her parents were dead she also lost the will to live. Finally, just a few weeks before the allied soldiers freed the camp she and her sister died in a contagious disease. Her mother died of starvation; she was giving all her rations to her daughters. Only her father survived the ordeal and he published her diary. Why it frightened me is that it is very much possible that such things can happen to anyone, and we must be thankful for our easy, taken for granted life and loving family and friends.

These and other incidents that I read frightened me so much that I couldn't sleep, and was awake till the sun came up. Or maybe it was because I was too engrossed in reading....?