What's cooking?

The folks in the flat upstairs are definitely involved in something shady.

For the last month or so, as soon as I lay me down to sleep, I hear noises.

Bump …. thud … bump

 

The first night I thought they were rearranging furniture.

 

But every single night?

 

The bizarre medley of noises include the sound of running feet, a series of muffled thuds, random chairs being dragged, pressure cooker whistles and vigorous mortar pestle grinding.  Now these are normal household sounds, you would argue. You are right. Of course they are. But who cooks at midnight?

 

Some days, it feels as though the ceiling will come crashing down on my head from all that running and thud-ing. Given the recent unfortunate happenings in Gurgaon, I’m not taking any chances. I have started going to bed wearing my Sunday best. Freshly laundered.

 

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the folks upstairs were disposing of a body. But unless they were part of some crime syndicate (Gurgaon Gangsters Alliance?), I can’t think of why they would need to dispose of a body every night. Perhaps I read too much crime fiction but a pressure cooker going off in the middle of the night is a red signal for sure. What or who are they cooking?

 

I’d watched a movie in my teens called The ‘Burbs and the scenario is uncannily similar. There’s definitely something cooking if you know what I mean *wink wink*

 

Perhaps I should call up the RWA and tell them about my plight instead of letting my imagination wander. But my brains are all muddled up from lack of sleep and I have no clue what to say.

 

Any ideas?

Things that go BLEAT in the night!

The silence was punctuated by a series of unearthly sounds.

Aaaa eeeee ooooo aaa eee oooo aaa eee oooo

 

I dropped the bowl of ice cream in fright and dashed out of my room to investigate.

 

It was nearly midnight and everyone should have been asleep. I stress on the word should since the pandemic (and Netflix) has messed up our sleep cycles. I stood in the corridor of our flat trying to ascertain where the odd sounds were coming from. The door to the teen’s room was ajar. What on earth was she up to?

 

My first thought was that she was holding a séance. That would explain the peculiar noises. When we were teenagers, we’d often play around with home-made Ouija boards (more about that later) so I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was doing something similar. I took a deep breath and peeped in cautiously.

 

The room was dark with fairy lights twinkling like stars near the window.

 

She was in front of her laptop, making weird sounds.

 

Aaaa eeeee ooooo aaa eee oooo aaa eee oooo

 

“What in god’s name are you up to?” I yelled at her. “Have you seen the bloody time?”

 

She grinned sheepishly and gestured for me to pipe down as she was on a call with a friend. Turns out the two girls were doing an online quiz and one of the clues involved figuring out what a mountain goat does. Hence the Alpine yodelling in the middle of the night!

 

The pandemic has messed with our brains, some of us more than the others. Now I’m not sure whether I'm shocked or relieved that she wasn’t invoking spirits from the other world. The house is cramped enough as is. Not sure we have space to accommodate more souls. Hopefully, now that things are coming back to normal, she can go outside and be a regular (masked) teenager again. I will tell her to refrain from bleating when she’s outside though. Not sure the goats of Gurugram will take kindly to cultural appropriation.