The One with Stray Dogs and Visitors at Midnight

I live in a fairly small flat.

Okay, a really small flat. 

But seeing that there are only four of us in our little family, a small house is more than enough. 

On most days, anyway.

Since it is a small house, things tend to get a lot chaotic every now and then because of the huge lack of space – clothes strewn all over the place, books lying across the floor, on the tables, the TV stand, even on the washing machine. 

And because it’s always so messy, having people over can be a little tiresome, much to my mother’s dismay as she loves to play the role of the perfect hostess. So, on most occasions we don’t invite people over at all. 

But as expected, there’s always an exception to that rule depending on the person who wants to visit you.

For example, the police.

 You don’t want to say no when men in uniform decide to show up outside your door.   

Even if it is at one in the morning. 

Oh, no.

 What you do is you wipe that half-dried drool on the side of your face, fix your hair and run helter-skelter to pick up the socks that are hanging from the arms of the sofa, shove the newspapers into some corner (preferably not under the sofa cushions), and make yourself and the living room as presentable as you can.

Luckily, being the somewhat nocturnal animal that I am, I was awake at that time and had heard the sirens way before the car came into view and therefore, had the time to do all those tasks(minus the drool-wiping) along with waking everyone else. 

One could say we were expecting them. 

By ‘we’, of course, I mean all our neighbors, because we had no idea that they'd called the cops and they only bothered to inform at the last minute. Hence, all the rush.

Here’s the thing, I live in a very shady area.

 I live in that part of the city that’s pretty much notorious for its horrible reputation of being frequented by thieves, murderers, rapists and the likes. I live in that part of the city where you can always find a police van circling the area at all times, where us women are specifically told not to venture out after a certain time in the night. 

You can probably feel the eeriness as you take a stroll down my street after sunset; the street lamps haven’t been fixed in a long while so the entire stretch is shrouded in darkness, and you have no idea if anybody is standing behind that car on your left, waiting to pounce at you. 

Seeing that we have our own array of criminals and vandals, having our own personal stalker shouldn’t have come off as much of a surprise as it did.

That’s right, our own personal stalker. 

It was a Tuesday night (or was it Thursday?), way past everybody’s bedtime, probably around midnight. I had been awake, mostly watching TV and talking to likeminded nocturnal animals such as myself through the magic of the interwebs and seemingly unaware about anything happening outside my phone, when I heard a noise outside my window.

It was the sort of shuffling noise you hear when someone’s shoes scrape against the concrete floor, but it was way too soft for you to even identify it as a shoe-shuffling sound. 

I’d dismissed it as one of the many stray dogs we shelter within our compound (partly owing to my weakness for cute, helpless pups) that was probably going out for a late night stroll by the jackfruit trees we grow behind our building. 

But then I heard it again.

What made this noise distinct and noticeable from the first was that it was followed by the creaking sound of a window being opened. 

More specifically, my window.

The curtains were down, which made it impossible for me to be sure if it really was my window that was being opened. 

That was until the light breeze from outside decided to flutter it a bit, and I saw the face of a man peering inside. 

I was frozen to my spot, my mind a complete blank, my heart beating a thousand times faster, my palms starting to sweat, and I vaguely remember knocking down a water bottle that was on the table beside me. 

But as quickly as I’d seen it, the face was gone. The breeze was out, the windows were back shut. 

I was still recovering from the shock of what I'd just seen when a knock on my window jerked me out of it.

It was my neighbours. They'd called the police.

Everything following that went by in a blur. In less than five minutes, I was informed about the stalker who had been prowling the street late in the night, who had somehow taken a liking towards my window and had been spotted by my neighbours on multiple occasions(they'd even informed the police about him many times before too).

It was only a matter of few minutes before I'd woken up my parents to clue them in on everything, and had 'arranged' the living room to my mother's tastes, when the doorbell rang, signalling the arrival of the police.

Unfortunately, all my hard work had been put to waste because they had no intention of coming inside

Standing on our doorstep, they briefed us about what I already knew, with the additional information that when the neighbours had tried to grab him, he'd made a run for it but had left behind his motorcycle, with which they were sure that they would have him in custody in no time.

While I had been internally panicking with every word being said, I was amazed at how cool my parents were, simply nodding at appropriate times and interrupting with a question or two. They were the perfect picture of calm and collected, which was very surprising because knowing my mom, she should have created a scene by now. But then I noticed the grip with which she'd been holding on to my hand as well as my dad's, and that's when I knew she was barely keeping it together.

After a small chat with me where they questioned me about what I'd seen, they went outside to show my parents the motorcycle, and I was left alone in the living room.

Sitting on the sofa, my mind flashed back to the many occasions I'd heard strange noises outside my window but had never really bothered to check.

To think that everything I did after hours --homework, studying, mostly meddling with my phone-- simple tasks as they were, had been noted and watched on a regular basis was more than unsettling. 

I remember I'd gone straight to bed after that, lightly kicking my sister who, not surprisingly, had slept through the whole thing since she is the deepest sleeper known to mankind (although was thoroughly upset at not having been woken up).

I barely got any sleep that night.

Now, it's been a month since the incident, and while I've been on my guard every night in the fear of a repeat, there hasn't been any sign of the man ever since.

But that still doesn't stop me from jerking every time one of the stray dogs does decide to take a midnight stroll by the jackfruit trees.

Because you never really know who's there outside your window.