Tap... Tap... Tap... Tap...

*tap… tap… tap… tap…*

Amrita woke up.

It was a dark moonless night.

She was gripped by a nameless fear.

Its widowed mother had died in childbirth leaving it alone in the world. Motherless, and nameless, it grew up an abused, unwanted fear and soon took to groping at women in the dark.

Poor thing.

*tap… tap… tap… tap...*

The strange rhythmic tapping echoed, faint but eerie through the silence of the night.

She was drawn to it. It was strangely familiar and yet deeply troubling.

It was a perilous sound that seemed to speak to her very being, haunting her, commanding her, controlling her.

The more she listened the more it mesmerised her.

And then she heeded its command. She heeded its command like any self respecting mesmerised girl would. Barefoot and in her pajamas, her bed head a terrifying sight in itself.

*tap… tap… tap… tap…*

Out of bed.

Out the door.

Down the stairs.

Across the path.

Stumble, trip, fall.

Get up, embarrassed, look around to see if any one saw, continue, but in a more careful mesmerised state.

Up the stairs.

Through the door.

*tap… tap… tap… tap…*

She was in the recreation room.

Someone was playing table tennis.

Alone.

In the dark.

While completely asleep.

Her head lolled to one side and she stood stiffly.

Her hand moved automatically as though she was nothing more than a large dishevelled, and peacefully snoring puppet.

Her opponent was a floating paddle.

“Welcome Amrita”, said an ethereal voice that whispered in the room.

“So sorry for waking you” it continued politely, “but I have need of you.”

“Who are you?” she asked, directing her question at the girl.

“hmmmmmblrrrrr…….no, no! Bad giraffe! Bad!” the girl replied.

“Don’t mind her”, said the voice. “It’s nothing to be concerned about, she’s just potty training her giraffe.”

“Aah”, said Amrita, in a voice that suggested that that made perfect sense to her.

It didn’t. But she had a pet fish that talked to her constantly, and she was practised in pretending to understand. Her fish was quite crazy.

“Who are you?” she asked, and directed the question at the voice, which was nowhere in particular.

“Oh! Just your sportive neighbourhood ghost, but it gets so boring playing against myself, so I thought I’d find a worthy opponent. Fancy a game?”

Her immediate reply was, obviously, “I thought you’d never ask.”

The other, temporarily possessed girl went back to her room. Sleepwalking and now discussing how many jujubes she wanted in her tiara.

Amrita and the paddle played and played.

Amrita overjoyed.

The paddle overjoyed, though it was hard to tell. Paddles tend to be so inexpressive.

*tap… tap… tap…tap… *

They never stopped.

Amrita died of exhaustion but didn’t stop playing, even as her body crumpled to the floor, in a rather undignified, floppily manner.

They found her lying peacefully under the T.T. table, her paddle floating above her heaped body, still engrossed in the game.

More than the floating paddle, it was the crazed look in her eyes and her violent bedhead that utterly traumatised the guy who found her.

“OH MY GOD!” he screamed, “What’s wrong with her face?”

“Um……,” replied his infinitely calmer friend, “she’s dead”

“I know that”, he said offhandedly, “but seriously, what’s wrong with her face?”

It was the terrifyingly hideous grin of pure happiness.

At her funeral they would say through teary eyes, “She died like she always wanted. It was her dream. She wanted to go on her own terms, while the ball was still in her court.”

And forever you can hear the rhythmic sounds of two matched souls, playing table tennis into eternity.

*tap… tap… tap…tap… *