The Face in
the Night
It must be some 6-7 or 8-9 years now after this
singular incident took place. It happened when I was living in the first floor
house where the ground floor was vacant, the inmates having escaped a couple of
weeks earlier without leaving a forwarding address. No ground staff, only the
flying squad.
As is my habit, I boo a dit of beading in red after
dinner before nodding off to sleep. You know what I mean. By the time I bang
the book shut, slam the lights off and quietly call it a night, the clock
usually has slid past the twelve o’ clock mark. I generally manage to get my
seven or eight hours straight and without a break, unless I have had that glass
of water just before head hit pillow.
This night was no different. I read my
constitutional twenty three pages till my eyes were barely able to stay open. My
brain was starting to fog up and stray out of focus. I snapped the book shut
with a snap, reached out and flicked the light switch off with a flick. As the
room went dark, I closed my eyes, rolled over to my right and made a dignified
exit to slumber-land. I think I went out like the light I had just flicked off.
All had become silent in the household except for the odd snores emanating from
time to time.
Suddenly I came awake. One moment I had been out as
described above, in a state of suspended animation as it were, the next I came
alive, into a state of animated suspension. I tried to reckon the time, but the
clock in my head, which is usually reliable and correct to the minute, was on
temporary leave of absence, its mainspring having broken off from its moorings.
But I reckon it must have been close to three o’ clock. Very oily in the moining.
I blinked my eyes open but made no other movement. It
was as well. My bed was right next to the window whose shutters were glazed
with translucent figured glass with a kind of serrated design. There were no
curtains covering the window. As my eyes settled on the window, I saw a face!
Yes, I saw a face. It wasn’t a reflection of my own
face; I know my face well and this wasn’t it. There was another face outside,
trying to peer into the room through the glass! When my eyes slowly focussed, I
could see the whites of the eyes as it tried to look inside. It was pressed
close to the glass with the hands held on either side. It was fairly lit by the
outside street lights but I could not make out the features. Whoever it was,
was trying to look inside but not succeeding because the inside of the house
was in darkness. Hardly four feet away from me.
I was fully awake now. I knew what I should do. I
slowly sat up. I breathed in deeply but silently, inflating first my left and
then my right lung to the full, put my head as close to the window as I could
without moving my body and looked straight at the face. And I bellowed.
It came out as a deep roar, gathering force as it
exited my throat, a boom of thunder rolling out and hitting the window pane
with a fearful punch. I don’t know if it woke up the entire neighbourhood, but
it certainly jolted my wife from deep slumber to wakefulness.
“HOOAAAOOOOYYYY!”
My vocal performance produced impressive results
outside the window. For a second after the reverberation died down and the
window panes stopped rattling, nothing happened. Then the face disappeared from
the window as if wiped off, there was a loud “THUD” of something heavy falling
to the ground and I heard someone groan “AYYO”.
I realised then that that face was part of a head
which had a thorax and an abdomen joined to it. In other words, there was a
body below that head. And legs attached to the body. The blighter had been standing
on the “chajja” (“chad ja” for him?) or sunshade of the
ground floor window just below my window and trying to peer inside. Who was he?
Thief? International spy? Peering Brosnan? I don’t know, but I do know that I
had startled him and upset his delicate balance, causing his downfall. I had scared
him right off his perch.
I quickly picked up the stout bamboo cane with the
bent root like a hockey stick which I keep next to my bed and ran out on to the
balcony, hoping he had broken a leg or something and was lying in the narrow
passage beside the compound, unable to move. I was disappointed. The blackguard
had disappeared.
My wife was sitting up, looking dazed. She found it
difficult to believe what had just taken place but having been in the room
while it happened, she had to.
All in all, a very satisfying bellow. I should use
it more often.
-
©
Shiva Kumar 2016
