Narrator: Aditi R. | Pune, India
When my father came to stay, he left a spare key under a pot on our small balcony. I told him repeatedly that this was a terrible idea. We were on the second floor. He said anyone willing to climb up deserved a cup of tea.
One evening I was watering the plants when a hand came over the outside of the railing. It rested there, palm down, very close to my wrist.
I couldn’t see an arm. Below it was open air and the paved courtyard. The hand was dry, although rain had started and everything else was wet.
It pointed at the flowerpot.
I put the watering can down and went inside. I locked the balcony door. The hand remained on the rail until the curtains covered it.
My father checked with a torch. Nothing. I took the key from under the pot and had the lock changed the next morning.
I am the practical one in my family. That is what everyone says. So I didn’t tell them that, when I lifted the flowerpot, the key was resting in a little depression shaped exactly like a fingertip in the dry soil beneath it.
