Mr.
Oliver, an Anglo-Indian teacher, was returning to his school late one night, on
the outskirts of the hill station of Shimla. Mr. Oliver had been teaching in
the school for several years. The Shimla bazaar with its cinemas and restaurants
was about two miles from the school and Mr. Oliver, a bachelor, usually strolled
into the town in the evening, returning after dark, when he would take a short
cut through a pine forest. When there was a strong wind, the pine trees made
sad, eerie sounds that kept most people to the main road. But Mr. Oliver was
not a nervous or imaginative man. He carried a torch and moved fitfully over
the narrow forest path. When its flickering light fell on the figure of a boy,
who was sitting alone on a rock, Mr. Oliver stopped. Boys were not supposed to
be out of the school after 7 pm ,
and it was now well past nine.
“What
are you doing here, boy?” asked Mr. Oliver sharply, moving closer so that he
could recognize the miscreant. But even as he approached the boy, Mr. Oliver sensed
that something was wrong. The boy appears to be crying. His head hung down, he
held his face in his hands and his body shook convulsively. It was a strange,
soundless weeping, and Mr. Oliver felt distinctly uneasy.
“Well
– what’s the matter?” he asked, his anger giving way to concern. “What are you
crying for?” The boy would not answer or look up. His body continued to be
rocked with silent sobbing. “Come on boy, you shouldn’t be out here at this hour.
Tell me the trouble. Look up.” The boy looked up. He took his hands from his
face and looked up at the teacher. The light from Mr. Oliver’s torch fell on
the boy’s face – if you could call it a face.
He had
no eyes, ears, nose or mouth. It was just a round smooth head – with a school cap
on it. And that’s where the story should end – as indeed it has, for several
people who have had similar experiences and dropped dead of inexplicable heart
attacks. But for Mr. Oliver, it did not end there.
The
torch fell from his trembling hands. He turned and scrambled down the path,
running blindly through the trees and calling for help. He was still running
towards the school building when he saw a lantern swinging in the middle of the
path. Mr. Oliver had never before been so pleased to see the night watchman. He
stumbled up to the watchman, gasping for breath and speaking incoherently.
“What is it, Sahib?” asked the watchman. “Has there been an accident? Why are
you running?”
“I saw
something – something terrible – a boy weeping in the forest – and he had no
face!”
“No
face, Sahib?”
“No eyes,
nose, mouth, nothing.”
“Do
you mean it was like this, Sahib” asked the watchman, and raised the lamp to
his own face. The watchman had no eyes, no ears, no features at all – not even
an eye brow! The wind blew the lamp out, and Mr. Oliver had his heart attack.
