Anklets

Bangalore, the city I grew up in, is also known as the Garden City owing to the innumerable parks and gardens spread all over it. Not surprisingly, there are a couple of parks surrounding the area I live in, with one park closer to my house than the others.

The park is not too far from my house. A distance which takes around ten minutes to cover by walk.

It was early on a Saturday morning. I had a holiday that day, so my dad took me along with him on his morning walk.

He is a diabetic, has been one for the past three years. He goes for hour-long walks every day to keep his sugar levels controlled and having nothing better to do on a weekend morning, I went along with him just that once.

He loves change. Always chooses different roads or parks to walk in every morning. That day he chose to walk in the park near my house. I don’t know if it was just a coincidence or something deeper than that.

The park had a bad reputation among the people in the neighbourhood. They said bad things, sinister things had happened there and were still happening. Indeed, even to a person who didn’t believe in the supernatural, the park seemed weird.

Inside the park, most of the plants bore flowers, which were the same common flowers you might find in any other park. But here, try as you might, even with a pair of scissors, certain flowers could never be plucked, and they eventually withered and dropped off the plant. And in some plants, even the most slender branch could not be cut with the sharpest garden shears. They grew and grew; almost covering the path before going the same way as the flowers. The scary thing was that both the flowers and branches developed vicious, sharp thorns just before drying up, which made all the garbage quite a nuisance to clear.

But on the other hand, outside the park for a five-foot radius, not even a weed could penetrate the ground. Numerous attempts were made by various groups of people, using manure, fertilizers and liberal amounts of water, but even the plants placed in the dug-up soil would die within a couple of days. The amateur gardeners had eventually given up and used the barren ground to park their vehicles.

That morning, my dad and I began walking briskly inside the park. With his long legs, my dad was soon far ahead of me.

I concentrated on moving my feet in synchronisation; looking at the ground and trying not to trip and fall. Occasionally, a pair of feet would overtake me. Black shoes, red shoes, slippers…

Around fifteen minutes after I started walking, I heard a periodic jingling sound behind me. It got louder and louder, sounding like it was approaching me. I frowned slightly. It must be some old lady doing her daily power-walk, wearing anklets that had tiny bells attached to them that jingled with every step she took. The sound soon came from right behind me, and each jingle began to match my steps. Five minutes after hearing the jingling sound every time I took a step, I got tired of the sound. I slowed down a bit so the lady could overtake me.

To my immense irritation, the jingling also reduced its pace. If I sped up, the jingling followed me relentlessly. After some time it occurred to me that the anklet-wearer might be someone I know playing a prank on me.

My curiosity got the better of me and I turned around. I froze. A soft laugh came from the direction I now faced.

There had been no one behind me.