The Banana Stealer

    It was a quiet evening, and the highway leading home was cloaked in an unsettling stillness. The road, lined with dense shadows from overhanging trees, stretched endlessly into the gloom of Bhubaneswar’s outskirts. Riding my bicycle with a bunch of bananas securely tied to the back seat, I couldn't shake the sensation that the silence wasn’t natural—it pressed down on me like a heavy blanket.

I pedaled faster, eager to leave the oppressive quiet behind. But without warning, the banana bunch tumbled onto the street with a dull, fleshy thud. Annoyed, I stopped to secure it again. The knot was tight; there was no reason for it to have fallen. I chalked it up to chance and resumed my ride, though a faint prickle of unease crept up my spine.

Not long after, the bananas fell again. This time, I felt a chill ripple through me, sharper than the evening breeze. It wasn’t the bananas that unsettled me, but the sensation that something unseen was tugging at them—a deliberate, malevolent pull. My hands trembled as I secured them once more, my breath quickening.

A sense of dread settled in as I pedaled forward. The sound of my bicycle wheels on the asphalt seemed unnaturally loud, as though amplified in the void of silence surrounding me. When the bananas fell a third time, panic surged through my chest. The bicycle lurched slightly, as though something heavy had pressed against it. My throat went dry. I didn’t want to turn around. I couldn’t.

“Take them,” I whispered hoarsely to the unseen force, my voice breaking. “Take whatever you want. Just… leave me alone.” My words disappeared into the void, swallowed by the oppressive quiet.

The air grew heavier, as though thickened by an invisible presence. Every turn of the pedals felt like a struggle against some unseen resistance. I could feel it watching me, waiting. The bananas tumbled again, but this time I didn’t stop. I pleaded desperately, my words tumbling out in gasps. “Please… just stop dropping them. Take what you want. Please!”

Suddenly, a strange sensation rippled through me—a shove, almost playful, yet utterly wrong. The air seemed to shift, and I felt it: cold, alien, inhuman. Gathering every ounce of courage, I risked a glance over my shoulder.

A hand—thin, pale, and impossibly long—reached out from the shadows. Its gnarled fingers curled around a banana, lifting it with a deliberate slowness that made my skin crawl. The rest of the figure remained hidden, swallowed by the night, but the hand alone was enough. There were no legs, no feet—just that hand, and a shadow deeper than any natural darkness.

Scattered bananas littered the road behind me like offerings to some unspeakable entity. My heart pounded in my chest as I turned away and pedaled harder than I ever thought possible. The air seemed to buzz with the faint sound of laughter—low, guttural, and distant, yet somehow inside my head.

By the time I reached home, I was drenched in sweat, shaking uncontrollably. The bananas were gone, save for a single one that remained perched on the back of my bicycle. I didn’t touch it. I couldn’t.

Even now, I can’t shake the memory of that hand emerging from the darkness. It haunts me in the quiet moments, a grim reminder that not all things in the shadows are imagined—and some are far too real.

*A true story shared by my maternal aunt, this was experienced by her father.

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