It had been a long day for Aditi. The seconds seemed to have been dawdling, the minutes were crawling, and the hours had forgotten to tick tock forward.
Even after multiple cups of black coffee, she found herself dozing off during calls.
“Thank goodness, it wasn’t a video call.” She thought to herself.
The letters, in one particular document, seemed to fly across the paragraphs jumbling up the sentences. She slapped herself to refocus, but even that didn’t work. Instead, she found herself staring at the screen, trying to unjumble the words..
Going to the cafeteria seemed like a chore due to the exhaustion and even the latest gossip about her colleagues’ dating lives didn’t seem spicy enough.
Yet throughout the day, Aditi would nudge the seconds, poke the minutes, and push the hours to somehow make it through the day.
So, finally when, she reached home, she took a hot shower and decided to unwind by doing what she loved the most. Reading.
“Hmmm, what should I read?” She thought to herself as she stood in front of her bookshelf where some books tightly caught between others clambered for space, while the others fought not to fall off as shelf doors opened.
From amongst the erratically arranged books, J K Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire caught her eye.
“Why not? I can read this one again.” She thought, picking it up and closing the shelf doors in time enough to stop other books from falling.
With the book in one hand and a glass of green tea kept on the side table she lay down on the sofa wearing her favourite night suit.
That was the first time she heard the sound “Thak Thak.”.
It was a distant sound. Something that came from beyond the door. But she did not make anything big of it.
“It must be somebody at the neighbours’,” she thought to herself and with that she opened to the first page of the book.
The people of the village of Little Hangleton and the Riddle House were getting introduced.
“Thak, Thak”. The sound came again.
“Nooooooo!!” On the inside she screamed. On the outside she closed the book and threw her head back, unhappy at being disturbed at this hour especially when she is trying to rest.
“If I don’t open the door. Whoever it is will go away.” She thought as she looked at her door hoping that she would not have to get up and face whoever it was on the other side.
“Thak! Thak!”
“Please go away. Don’t make me get up. I can’t handle conversation right now.” she prayed, while her gaze still fixed at the door.
Then, there was silence for some time.
And as soon as she thought that god had accepted her prayers, there it was again.
“Thak!! Thak!!”
“Oh God.” This time she voiced it out aloud, contorting her face in a way she didn’t know she could.
She threw the book on the sofa and kept the green tea on the side table and stood up to open the door.
“It better be good.” She spoke to the door, walking towards it, visibly upset at being disturbed during her rest time.
She unbolted the door and opened it, ready to give a piece of her mind to anybody on the other side of the door, if it was an unnecessary intrusion in her private space.
“Huh!!” She was taken in by surprise.
There was no one at the door.
“Hello. Who is it?” She opened the door and looked left and right to check who knocked on the door. But there was no one.
Perplexed, she turned around, closed the door, & walked back toward her sofa.
“I am sure I heard someone knock.” She thought.
“This indeed is strange. Maybe whoever it was, left because I did not open the door on time.”
She sat down on the sofa and opened the first page of the book again. Though her mind was still wondering about what had just happened.
“It could be the guard. They do come sometimes to collect the maintenance.”
“No it can’t be them. It’s too late for them to come at this time.”
“I know, it could be somebody who came at the wrong flat number and only realized the mistake after he pressed the doorbell and to avoid the embarrassment, he left before I could open the door.”
“Yeah, that is exactly what happened.” Content that she was able to crack the mystery she went back to reading her book.
The village of Little Hangleton and the Riddle House.
“Thak!! Thak!!”
Her head sprung up like a mushroom on a forest floor. Her eyes widened. Her body tensed. Within a blink of an eyelid she threw the book on the sofa and ran for the door. This time she would not miss whoever it was at the door. She opened the door with the adroitness of a magician shuffling her cards. But as soon as she opened the door, the space beyond the door was empty. Nada.
“Damn!!!!”
Instinctively she went for the stairs and looked down but there was no one there.
“Hello!” she shouted to confirm.
“Who is it?” She shouted again as if the first time she wasn’t loud enough.
Yet there was no response. Confused, she went inside her house and closed the door behind.
Still thinking about who it could be she lay down on her sofa and picked up the book she was reading.
“Who could it be? Must be the neighbourhood kids.” She thought.
Two distinct knocks “Thak Thak”
Someone was knocking on her door.There was no doubt about it.
“Oh god. It better not be some kids playing a prank on me.”
The anger in her voice when she said that aloud would have slammed open the door. But she decided to slam her book shut instead. And with a fury she stood up and walked up to that door only to notice that there was no one behind it once she opened it.
“Damn!!” she screamed to herself
“They got me again.”
She shut the door behind her and walked back to the sofa she was lying earlier. But she did not open her book. Rather she waited for the knock to arrive again.
And it did.
Only this time it was louder and with a purpose. As if to show her that whoever it was that was knocking on her door knew what he or she was doing.
Even before the perpetrator behind the door could complete the knock Aditi was already running for the door. She aimed to catch the person by surprise and then give him or her a piece of her mind.
With all the speed she could muster she reached the door and opened the doors only to find that there was nobody.
“Damn!!” She shouted at herself and stomped her foot in frustration.
“Who is it? Do you think this is funny?” She spoke loudly, frustration palpable in her voice.
“If you do it one more time I swear I am going to catch you and you are going to repent doing this.”
But like all the times before, there was a complete silence. She could not hear anyone.
“Arrgghhh” She grunted one more time and then she decided to come back inside the house, shutting the door behind her.
As soon as she closed the door. She stopped in her track. She turned around, picked up the house keys and opened the door again and came out in the staircase. Once out she looked around to ensure that there was no one.
Then she tiptoed her way to the stair case leading down. Once she had climbed down the first flight of stairs she squatted in a way that she could see her door but if someone was at her door knocking, he could not see her
And then she waited.
Her gaze fixed at her door. Hoping to catch the perpetrator red handed. But no one came. There was no knock. She still waited and waited only to finally give up, rejected.
When the reality dawned upon her that the perpetrator of this heinous crime was not going to show up while she was sitting there, she got up.
And she stood there for some time thinking of what she could do. She had to catch this person.
And that’s when this idea struck her She climbed down the staircase two steps at a time and smiling through all the 8 floors of staircase. Because finally she had got that piece of trash.
Once on the ground floor, she ran towards the security room. Once she was in front of the gate, she knocked frantically because no one except the guards were allowed inside.
A guard opened the gate, “Yes, mam.”
“Can I see the video recording of the 8th floor staircase of the past 3 hours?” She asked the guard, still gasping for air.
“Mam I am sorry we can’t do that. You would have to get a written permission from the main gate for that.” The guard replied.
His tone, apologetic yet conveying that there is no point in asking things whose answer you know.
“I know, I know. But you see for the past three hours, somebody has been knocking on my door and when I open the door he hides and doesn’t respond. All I want to do is see who that person is and ask him to stop. In fact you only can go and tell at the main gate. Must be somebody from the society. I am sure.”
“Ummm…Mam if chief sahab finds out I will get fired.” He replied. Undecided on whether to grant her her wish.
“Bhaiya why dont you only go and tell them once we get to know who he is. You can always say that you caught him doing this on camera. This way the chief sahab will also get happy at your alertness. Plus I will go in and put a recommendation for you saying that you did a great job.” She appealed again.
He said nothing for some time but she could hear everything he was saying through his eyes.
First they sparkled at the image of chief sahab commending him for the great job he had done by saving a damsel in distress.
Then the eyes widened when the chief sahab gave him a promotion at apprehending the miscreant.
“Bhaiya please can you help me?”
“Of course madam. Of course. Why not.”
With springs in his steps he walked towards the only computer sitting at one corner of the room.
“Mam please have a seat.” he offered her a stool to sit next to him.
When she did sit, he opened the camera recordings on the computer.
“What time should I start from?” He asked as both of them looked at the desktop screen with eagerness in their eyes.
“Umm around 8 in the evening.”
“Ok.”
As the guard replayed the recording, both him and her could see the black iron gate.
The gate featured a continuous outer frame adorned with wavy iron lines that interconnected multiple marigold-shaped designs at its center. Although the entire gate wasn’t visible from above, both the guard and Aditi could spot a small patch of hay resting on its top section.
“What’s that madam?” The guard asked.
“Oh, it is a Hawaian doll.”
“Why have you kept it here?”
“Its a gift by a friend, it supposed to bring good luck,”
“It isn’t working madam, you should think of changing it.” the innocent guard suggested the clearly troubled Aditi.
“Should we watch the tape.?” Aditi asked, feigning a smile.
“Oh yeah,yeah. Madam. Let’s do that.”
And for the next hour or so Aditi and the guard watched 3 hours of camera feed at 3 times the speed. And yet all they could see was Aditi’s gate with the doll’s hay skirt moving sporadically.
“This is all the tape madam. You said there was someone knocking at your door madam. But there is non one.”
“Madam I also showed you the tape assuming we will be able to catch the miscreant madam but there is no one.”
“Madam, if my boss gets to know that I have shown you the tape without taking his permission he will fire me madam.” The guard half complained and half scolded her. After all his dreams of a promotion and a raise had just gone down the drain.
“Arey Bhaiya but there is someone knocking on my door. ” Aditi tried to explain to him.
“Madam, I think you should leave. Already you have put me in a lot of trouble.” The guard looked towards her with her hands stretched , as if guiding her towards the room’s exit.
Aditi took the cue and decided to leave the place.
“What just happened?”
“There is definitely somebody knocking on my door.”
“I am sure I am not dreaming of it. Then why couldn’t I not see anything in the camera?”
Slowly she climbed the stairs towards her apartment.
3rd floor.
“Could it be possible that the guard did not show me the entire footage?”
“No, I saw the timing with my own eyes.”
5th floor.
“Could he have edited the video?”
“How could he, you stupid girl. You only asked him to show the video. He was probably comfortably sleeping before you reached there.
7th floor.
“Thak. Thak.”
Aditi was pulled out of her own thoughts.
“HE IS HERE.”
She ran with all her strength jumping multiple steps.
I will catch him.
“THAK. THAK.” The sound came again.
But she was astounded when she reached her floor.
“THAK. THAK.. THAK. THAK.”
She could hear the sound. But she could not see any human being.
All she could see was a small sparrow that was pecking at the hawaiian doll’s skirt trying to pull the hay.
