Apple in the Pit
 

Amit watched Maya gulp down her breakfast. She looked up and said, “I am late, have to rush.”



“Will you be late coming back?” 



“Don't know, will call.” She blew him a kiss and rushed out before he could open his mouth again. With a grim face, he darted to the window. 



He watched her as she walked right across the small pit he had dug a little while earlier. She gingerly jumped across a puddle of water and zoomed off on her scooter after a couple of minutes. The rain last night had converted their front yard into a slimy mass of soil and soggy leaves. 



The witch doctor lived on the outskirts of the city. This meant that Amit had to take a day off from work to go and meet him. But he had done just that yesterday. The man had been sitting in front of a spitting fire lit inside a small square pit in the middle of the single roomed hut. Curly long hair framed his face and melted into the creases of his dark robes. His heavy lidded eyes gave an impression that he was in a trance. His assistant who had met Amit outside the hut told him that he could go inside and present his problem. His guru would give a solution, Amit was free to accept it or not but he was not to ask any questions.
 
The man heard Amit without any interruptions. Then without a word, he picked out a rotten apple from the pile of fruits heaped on the low table standing to his left. He held it over the fire and chanted for a few minutes. After a final hiss, he handed it over to Amit with specific instructions, “Bury the apple in the ground, it should be directly on her path. If she falls down after crossing it then you can be sure it is as you suspect. If she does not fall, you are worrying needlessly. ”



Amit reverentially put the apple in a bag and stashed it under the back seat of his car. He certainly did not want to misplace it. Maya had been staying late at work quite often and he felt her new boss was the reason.
 
The sky was pale grey when he woke up today. The wet ground had yielded to his manipulations easily and he finished the job in no time. He went back to sleep after that.
 
Now he sighed in relief and smiled, Maya had passed the test. With a song on his lips, he got ready. He ran to his car – just as he reached it, his legs skidded past the puddle of water and he fell down with a resounding thud.
 
 
* Fehmida Zakeer is based in the southern city of Chennai in India. Her work has come out in Linnet’s Wings, Static Movement, Everydaypoets, Shine Journal, Shorthumour, flashscribe, Muse India, 4Indianwoman.