The Mystery of the Red Guitar

My daughter stared mesmerized at the shiny new guitar her dad got for her one evening. It was a beautiful red color and had a bit of black on its neck towards the fingerboard. She was eager and excited and cradled it in her arms with all the fondness that children show for a brand-new toy. Gently, she would pluck at the strings and then would squeal with delight as an automated tune played, powered by batteries of course. After all, it was a play guitar meant for children and not really a proper one that adults used. So, she would go about imitating the way professional guitarists played with eyes twinkling away at her parents and an impish smile lighting up her face. And the red guitar would come alive in her hands, a bluish light lighting it up from within as tiny blue bulbs lit up every time a string was touched or the automated tune played.







 

On night however, something rather strange happened and the little red guitar was at the center of it all. We all had gone to bed and were fast asleep. Sleeping heavily at first, and then falling off into a light doze filled with intermittent bursts of dreams that I couldn't make sense of, I heard a strange music. They were only notes, that much I could make out, as they seemed to come slowly, one-by-one. I was still half asleep. So, the musical notes seemed to me part of my dreams. I remembered my childhood summer vacations in Kerala, at my father's ancestral house, where there had been a clock that used to chime out the hour giving out the number of chimes according to the hour. So, even in our sleep we children used to hear it chime 11 and 12 times as midnight approached. I was taken back to that time suddenly in my sleep as I heard the musical notes now.

After a while the music stopped. And convinced that I had been dreaming, while still a part of my brain lay laboring under sleep, I tried to go back to my fully sleepy state. No sooner had I reassured myself, than the musical notes started again. My eyes flew open. I was fully awake - not half asleep, or half dreaming as I had been earlier. The music was definitely there, and it came from the living room! I checked the time on my mobile phone lying nearby on the bedside table and it showed 5:10 am. I stepped out of bed and walked to the corridor leading to the living room. Along the way, I remember trying to waken my husband and telling him to switch off the alarm. To my still foggy brain the thought had occurred that my husband had probably forgotten his phone in the living room and it was sounding the alarm. He got up and followed me.

I entered the living room and went to the dining table. Meanwhile, my husband had reached a cabinet nearby and was looking for his phone. He did find it, but on checking he found no sound and went back to bed saying that he had not set any alarm. I had gone to the dining table because on entering the room, I could make out the sounds as that coming from the guitar. And remembering that my daughter had placed the guitar on the dining table after playing it I thought to find it there. But there was no guitar there. The sounds came from the left. I turned to my left and went to the sofa near the table. There lay the red guitar. And of all the spooky things in the world, it was playing the notes one-by-one. Almost as if an invisible hand plucked at the strings! And there glowed the little blue bulbs giving an unearthly bluish light to the guitar as it played by itself, lying all alone on the sofa...

It was only a few moments, but I remember instantly picking up the still playing guitar and taking it to the dining table nearby, placing it upon the brown surface. I know not why I moved the guitar or even why I went near it at all. All I knew was that I wanted to make the music stop. And by moving it I probably thought to make it stop. I did not wait to see the effect of the change in the placement of the guitar. I remember that I quickly turned on my heel as soon as I placed the guitar on the table and rushed out of the room. As I moved away the music stopped almost as if the change in the placement of the guitar had made some difference. I also remember fervently hoping that it would not start up again.

Reaching my bedroom, I quickly got into bed and lay there pulling up the sheet over me. Fear had taken a place in my brain. Fear of what I know not. Maybe having seen a fair share of scary movies had awakened the fear of the paranormal, the unseen, the supernatural - I know not what, in me. I am quite certain in those moments of fear and sleepiness combined, I really did believe a ghost or an apparition was present in my living room playing my daughter's guitar. But I also remember hoping and praying that even if the ghost was so inclined to move to the dining table and resume his or her stint at the guitar, they'd do it after I fell asleep again so that I would not have to hear the music. It was not so much the fear of a supernatural entity in the vicinity, but the confirmation of its presence through the sense of hearing that I dreaded more I guess.

Anyway, my hopes and prayers were answered as I did not hear the music again that night and managed to fall back into a pretty satisfactory though not comforting sleep. When I awoke the next morning and went to take a look at the other-worldly guitar, it lay looking harmless and ordinary on the dining room table where I had placed it. No amount of scrutinizing was able to tell me why or how it had played on its own the night before. And the fact that it all had not been a dream or my hallucination was confirmed by my husband who asked me whether I had been talking in my sleep when I told him to switch off his alarm. So I surmised, yes, there definitely had occurred something rather mysterious the previous night and what I would not give to know the reason behind it!