The flashback hurts. It’s now a funny memory but it gives me the creeps whenever I try to recall it.
In retrospect it seems so silly that we fell for it hook, line and sinker. It was a childish prank but our reaction to it was no less infantile. None of us believed it at first. We thought it was a hoax. But as time ticked by, fear took hold.
It was summer vacation. We had gone to Anantapur to take part in my brother’s house-warming ceremony. The festivities lasted several days and then it happened. “What’s a book doing amidst tomatoes, cauliflower and fruits,” my sister-in-law wondered when she opened the refrigerator. It was a murder mystery my niece was reading the previous day. Nobody gave much thought to it and joked about the fridge being a perfect place for a cold-blooded thriller. The next morning when she opened the bathroom door she was in for a shock—a table fan was whirring inside and some magazines lay scattered.
What’s happening? We gasped—the first sign of panic and disorder. We couldn’t dismiss these oddities as stray happenings. Things were clearly going out of control. The discovery of a toothpaste and a face cream in the toilet the third day set alarm bells ringing. A veritable whodunnit.
Nothing made sense. To think all this was happening in a new house constructed with so much love saddened us. Surely a devil was at work. Our suspicion became certainty as crazy things started taking place at a rapid pace. My niece let out a cry when she found a small cooker dangling from the roof. A hush descended on the house, an uncanny silence that made one jumpy. That was the last straw.
“Just calm down,” we told each other but these words had the opposite effect. I took a deep breath and tried to silence the irrational thoughts racing through my mind. That night we hardly slept. As we racked our brains, my brother remarked, “Elementary, my dear Watson. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”.
Then the penny dropped. Close observation showed that while everyone was on edge, my nephew Parvez and niece Rukhsana acted cool. And they slept through the night while others kept vigil. Realising their game was up, the duo spilled the beans.
A software engineer, my nephew believes in implementing whatever he reads. That summer he happened to lay his hands on a book of pranks. Some make things happen, some watch them happen while others wonder what happened. My nephew belongs to the first category.
J S Ifthekhar
Email: jsifthekhar@gmail.com