Whispers of the Walls

Don’t you just hate it when a proverb is replete with lies?

It sounds so ludicrous and far from wise.

Like, walls can have more than just ears okay?

Read on further, you’ll get what I mean to say.

I was a young man when I had acquired

A loft that had everything my heart desired.

For a cheap place, it was super nice,

But the realtor warned that it came at a price.

The loft was shrouded in notoriety,

Something about it made the occupants flee.

Obviously, I needed to know more,

And the neighbours indulged me with a lore,

All previous occupants indeed had run away,

Because the loft didn’t want anyone to stay.

Apparently the walls were vocal with their dissent,

They drove everyone out by ceaseless torment.

Of course, I dismissed this as a children’s story,

Until one night, when sleep evaded me,

When the cuckoo chimed three times on the clock,

I began to hear a series of low knocks.

I got up surprised and slightly annoyed,

Who chooses an ungodly hour to come visit?

So when I found no one at the door,

I thought, I must’ve hallucinated the noises for sure.

The next night however, the knocks came back,

And I would’ve dismissed them as a prank,

Except they continued on until dawn arose,

With no hint of a troublemaker anywhere close.

Unless the prankster was always awol,

The doors probably weren’t involved at all.

It took me a fortnight to get to the bottom of this mystery,

It would’ve been quicker if I’d heeded to the history;

While it did seem like the walls were guilty,

I was a practical man and not swayed so easy,

I called up as many numbers as I deemed relevant,

Plumbers, electricians and everyone in between.

They reassured me that everything was in perfect condition,

So when the knocks continued, I took a new approach to the situation.

I leaned against the wall and put my ear to it,

The noises made my heart drop into a pit.

Loud and concentrated right where my ear lay,

Urgent, like a carnivore roaring for its prey.

As if that didn’t send enough shivers down my spine,

The knocks weren’t by themselves this time,

There were whispers too that I could hear,

I couldn’t rationalise; I was so full of fear.

I bolted to the door, but the knob just wasn’t complying,

And then, all of a sudden, a force sent me flying.

I landed with my skull indented on one side,

But that was only the start of the ride.

All through the corridor, I felt something drag me,

With the incessant knocks supplying a horrific symphony,

I could feel every last ounce of my strength draining,

I couldn’t fight; I just gave into the feeling.

And just as my life flashed before my eyes,

I remembered a game we used to play as boys,

A juvenile attempt at radio communication,

That had descended from Samuel Morse’s creation.

Suddenly, the knocks grew louder and immense,

This time they finally made sense,

Dah Dit Dit, Dit Dit, Dit,          

Dah Dit Dit, Dit Dit, Dit

I shut my eyes momentarily,

Trying to retrieve a code I’d mugged up drearily,

Just then, a loud thud caught my attention

I shuddered as my eyes flew open.

A pale face with sockets for eyes stared back at me,

With a wide toothless grin full of malicious glee.

Towering over me with a lunar face and a sickly body,

A ghastly figure probably of the supernatural variety.

 Dah Dit Dit, Dit Dit, Dit,         

Dah Dit Dit, Dit Dit, Dit

I crawled backwards, desperate to increase the gap,

Crawling and crawling, till I hit the wall and was trapped.

The sound of shrill laughter echoed in the loft,

The closer It came, the worse the pain got,

It, being the shadowy entity that smelt of rotting mass,

Who moved slowly so that the pain couldn’t just pass,

It wanted me to writhe in agony,

It wanted me to beg, to be killed quickly.

Dah Dit Dit, Dit Dit, Dit,          

Dah Dit Dit, Dit Dit, Dit           

The translation was now crystal clear,

Unfortunately, my end was near.

My final thought before my soul bade me goodbye?

The coded knocks had been a warning— DIE

Wait, wait, that is not the ending to my story;

They never found my body,

So they theorised I had run away,

And they sold you my home the very next day.

The knocks you’ve been hallucinating all around?

They are actually real sounds.

I can help you with their decryption,

For after all they are my mind’s creation.

Dah Dit Dit, Dit Dit, Dit,          

Dah Dit Dit, Dit Dit, Dit

The walls can have more than just ears okay?

Just lean closer, you’ll get what I mean to say.

Written by Ishita Sharma for MTTN

Edited by Shivangi Acharya for MTTN

Featured Image by General Cluster