The Crying Room

My name is Priya, and this is what happened in our apartment in Sharjah, where the summer heat presses down like a fist. Our flat is on the ninth floor, and every afternoon, the air-conditioning unit wheezes like an old man. But that’s not the worst sound. The worst sound is a child crying, always at 3:17 PM, always from the vicinity of the kitchen.

The first time, I was with my mother, and we heard it distinct and plaintive. She asked me to check on my younger brother, Kabir, thinking he had fallen. But Kabir was in the living room, glued to a cartoon, his eyes wide and innocent. We shrugged it off, blaming the neighbors. But two days later, at the same time, the same cry echoed through our flat. We checked the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedrooms. No child. My mother, a pragmatic woman, said it was just the building settling. But I saw her hands tremble as she poured her tea.

Then my sister, Anjali, saw something. She was walking past the kitchen doorway, heading to fill her water bottle, when she saw a figure, a woman in a long, black abaya, kneeling on the floor, cradling a bundle in her arms. The woman was rocking back and forth, and the bundle emitted a soft, muffled wail. Anjali froze. The woman lifted her head, and for a split second, Anjali saw her face, but it was not a face; it was a blur, like a smudge of charcoal on paper. Then, as if a camera clicked, they were gone. Anjali ran to my room, her face pale, and told me. I told her she was imagining things, stressed from exams.

But I was wrong. The very next day, I was alone, studying for my finals. Our parents had gone to the mall, and the helper, Mrs. D’Souza, had stepped out to buy groceries. The clock on my laptop read 3:16 PM. I was immersed in a chapter on thermodynamics when I heard the cry again, this time so close it seemed to be right outside my door. My skin prickled. I got up, my heart thudding, and opened the door a crack. The hallway was empty, dusk settling in. I was about to close it when my bathroom door, which was ajar, slowly creaked open. I stared at it, my breath caught. Then, with a force no draft could produce, it slammed shut, rattling the frame. The windows were sealed; the AC was on. The temperature outside was 44 degrees Celsius; there was no wind. I stood there, frozen, until the cry stopped, and the silence felt even more terrible.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I told my parents, but they dismissed it as a prank or the stress of exams. My mother, ever the skeptic, even walked through the flat with a bundle of sage, mumbling a prayer. But the next day, at 3:17 PM, we all heard it, not just me, but Anjali, my mother, and Mrs. D’Souza. It came from inside the wall near the kitchen. My father, who had been skeptical, finally called a building maintenance supervisor. They inspected the walls, but found nothing. No pipes, no vents, nothing that could explain a child’s cry.

Mrs. D’Souza, who had been silent, finally whispered that she had heard such cries before, in her village in Kerala, when a woman had drowned her newborn in a well because it was born out of wedlock. She said the unborn child’s spirit cries for justice. She refused to step into the kitchen after 3 PM.

We couldn’t move out; our lease didn’t allow breaking it without penalty. So we tried to live with it. We avoided the kitchen at 3 PM. But one day, Anjali, in defiance, decided to stand in the kitchen at 3:17 PM, with a camera. She wanted proof. I stayed in my room, but I heard her gasp. Then a crash. I ran out. Anjali was on the floor, the camera shattered, and she was crying. She said she saw the woman again, but this time the woman was holding out her hands as if to hand her the baby. Anjali saw the baby’s face, and she said it wasn’t a baby’s face; it was a gaping void, a pit of darkness that began to cry.

We called a local imam, who came and recited verses from the Quran. He told us that the building was built on a site where an old nursery once stood, and they used to dispose of afterbirths and stillborns. He said the cries were the souls of the innocent. He performed a ritual of water and salt, and for a week, we heard nothing. We thought it was over.

But then, one Friday, when we were all sitting for lunch, the crying resumed, but now it was louder, and it echoed from every room. We looked at each other, panicked. The imam’s ritual had not banished it; it had angered it. The water from our faucets turned cold, the lights flickered, and the mirror in the bathroom fogged up, writing on it a single word, a name: ‘Maya’.

We never knew who Maya was. But that night, I woke up to a soft whimpering beside my bed. My eyes adjusted to the dimness, and I saw a small shadow, the shape of a child, crouched by my bed, its face hidden. I screamed, and it vanished.

The next morning, Mrs. D’Souza quit. She said she couldn’t take it anymore. My parents finally decided to break the lease, despite the penalty. We packed in a hurry. As we left, I looked back at the apartment, and in the living room window, I saw the silhouette of a woman, holding a baby, watching us. I didn’t tell anyone.

We moved to a different complex, but the memory stayed. And sometimes, when I’m in the kitchen, at 3:17 PM, I hold my breath, listening for a cry that never comes. But I know it will, one day, because you can’t outrun a child in the walls, and you can’t silence a cry that comes from the very foundation of the earth.

We still talk about it, but we never speak the name Maya. Some things are better left in the dark.