The Whistle

Words often have magic. They, sometimes unknown to us leave and impression in our minds so real that every setting reflecting a similar condition take us to wolrd of the words themselves.

Recently , I have heard a number of times a faint yet shrill whistle somewhere out in the dark. A definite single whistle .....always in the dead of the night but never at the same time. It lasts for a second and half at the most. The whistler must be very used to it since it is always the same tone scale and pitch. I wonder if it is a call for someone, discrete and in code or a signal of assurance or danger, a part of a game or serious work....who knows.

Yesterday as I walked back to my room from the water cooler at the other end of the corridor, while crossing the terrace I looked at the sky. The moon hung above the trees in dim blue glow, gradually being covered in thick wisps of clouds. The edges of the clouds gleamed in silver and scattered eerie beams of moonlight across the sky. The night was lightly breezy and cool. And amidst this setting I hear from nowhere the familiar sound.

It instantly reminded me of the one story that I have read and that send a chill down my spine when I first read it. The Speckeld Band by Arthur Conan Doyle....an adventure of the ace Sherlock Holmes. The thrill and tension woven in the words of the Conan Doyle is very graphic, very real. I shall recount the story only as much, as would not tell too much. The plot of the story is macabre and yet is presented so realistically. The words describing the night build the night itslef in the readers mind. The way time passes in the words is almost like a real wait for the kill. The wistle in the story was a key to unravel the mystery of a death, and also a hideous murderer. The murderer and his deadly weapon....a sinister combination that imprinted itself on my mind.

So once back in my room I waited .......quietly. I was chiding myself for being scared, yet I waited with bated breath, for a hissing sound of a slithering reptile............