Tap. Tap. Tap.

Sara and I were the most inseparable things on earth. She was my sister. Six years older than me, but behaved like she was three years younger than me. She was the person I could talk to at any time, be it while going to school or five hours into her sleep. Even my earliest memories with my big sister were about having fun. Unlike other families with two or more children, we never fought. Maybe we did when we were younger, but my memories never traced the path to a moment in which we fought. Our thoughts were alike, our likes and dislikes similar. So were our friends and enemies. Perhaps the only thing that we were different in was our personality. She was an extrovert, and me, an introvert. Nevertheless, she was always there for me.

But Sara and I surprisingly never shared rooms. And I don't even think we ever wanted to. I think that was because of how our rooms were made. Both our rooms had a common wall, with a thin but strong translucent glass 'window' in between. We could open the slider, but we'd usually keep it closed. I don't really know why. In all our lives, I think we had opened it only like 5-6 times.

Another thing that you might want to know about Sara and my relationship was that she LOVED scaring me. That might be obvious, but she’d go to any extent to scare the bejeebers out of me. I distinctly remember the time when I was 8, when she scared me into staying in the bathroom for five hours straight by making me believe that she was fighting a five-eyed monster in my bedroom. She was a fantastic actress, I must say.

Enough about my sister.

This story is about what begun on the 13th of August, 2010. It was a Friday. 9pm. After playing our daily dose of chess, we both moved to our room to retire for the day. I think I had slept for about two hours when at roughly 1am, a weird sensation woke me up. It felt like someone was in the room with me. I thought it was Sara, and just ignored it. But the next minute, I heard something. It was from Sara's side of the window. Three, faint but creepy, Taps. "Tap.... Tap..... Tap.....", they went.

I froze.

"Sara, is that you?", I shouted out. There was no answer. I shouted out again, “Sara, I swear if this is you, stop. You won’t live to see tomorrow if you don’t.” The tapping stopped.

It took me close to an hour to fall asleep again. Even if it was Sara, the 11 year old me couldn’t muster the courage to simply ignore the taps that kept ringing in my head. But I fell asleep at length.

The next day, I woke up with a striking pain in my head. It was so bad that I couldn’t get off of my bed the entire day. I couldn’t talk to Sara about what could possibly be her idea to scare me.

But that night, I didn’t hear any taps.

I laughed to myself thinking about how playful my sister could be.

Two nights later, the Taps were back. This time, Sara got into my room and woke me up, saying she heard someone tapping and came over to my room thinking it was me. But when she woke me up, I heard them too. Three distinct taps from Sara’s side of the window. She looked petrified, but considering how good an actress she was, I just shooed her away and went back to sleep. She must’ve played something on her laptop today.

The next morning, I shouted my sister. She kept insisting that it wasn’t her, but I was never ready to accept that. No matter how much she tried talking to me, I'd just ignore. Sometimes so badly that she just stopped talking to me. 

I don’t think we’d ever fought that much in all the eleven years of my life.

The taps continued every alternate day from then, and I was sure that it was my evil sister. So I slept in my parents' room for about a month. 

17th of September, 2010.

Sara turned 17 that day. She still behaved like a 11 year-old though. She was one crazily careless woman.

After over a month, we finally spoke to eachother.

“Hey, Happy Birthday.” I smiled at her.

“Thanks!”, she smiled back at me.

The ice was broken.

“So, about the taps. I still hear them. You still think it’s me?”

This was when I was struck by an immense feeling of guilt. Her eyes were swollen. She hadn’t slept properly in over a month. Could it still be her?

“No, it still is her.” I told myself.

But I couldn’t hurt her with curt remarks on her birthday, could I?

I saw she was staring at me. I had taken too long for a response. Shit.

“You know what, today is your birthday. Why think about all those stuff? You like ghosts anyway. Shouldn’t bother you.”

Very cool, girl. Try refraining from using curt remarks? Hah! You just used one!

Sara did look hurt, but she was mature now. She hid her emotions and told me she’d get me a drink.

We talked all day. All evening, even. We actually talked till it was time for her to leave. She won a scholarship that let her study the last two years of High School at her dream school Atlanta. One lucky girl, she was.

Before she left, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. She had turned into this beautiful young girl. Her smile spoke a thousand words. Her eyes managed to reflect a thousand emotions in just one look.

She was leaving.

I wouldn’t get to see her like I always do for two years.

Why did I stop talking to her?

Why?

A tear dropped from my eye.

“Hey!!”

Sara came and hugged me tight one last time.

“I promise we’ll Skype every single day. No matter how busy I may be, I’ll make time for you. But for that, you must stop crying.”

We looked at eachother. We’d never realised how strong our bond was until that moment.

We dropped her off at the ariport. Before she left, she looked into my eyes and said, “I’ll miss you a lot, little sister. A lot. Just remember that I was never the cause of the taps.”

My parents heard the last sentence and said, “You girls still talk of that? Come on! It’s been a month! Stop fighting over this!”

We laughed at that. Then one last embrace, and she turned around and left.

The next morning, my aunt called up and asked us to turn on the news channel.

“BREAKING NEWS. Flight Number ***** bound to Atlanta crashed 67 minutes into its journey, no survivors found. Authorities state the plane’s engine failed.”

All the three people in my house stood in awe. 

That was Sara’s plane.

We took the next flight to the site of the crash. We looked frantically all around the crash site. Officers kept asking us to move away. But no, we had find Sara. We just had to. She was a strong girl. Nothing would kill her that easily. She had  to be alive.

An hour later, we stumbled across a handbag. It was Sara’s. I knew it. I had gifted it to her the day on her 17^th birthday. I had gifted it to her just a day ago.

I looked around, only to find about a few feet away, outside the boundaries the officers had set, a thin body, covered in bruises. It was not breathing.

Sara.

Five days in, I came back to normal. It was really hard without Sara. I couldn’t stand the void I felt.

Atleast I won’t have to hear those Taps anymore…

As insensitive and selfish as that sounds,  I couldn’t think of any other reason to get over Sara’s death. 

After five days of crying, I stopped.

I recalled all the memories we had made together.

Just my sister and I.

Sara would have a lot of memories to smile at while in Heaven.

My story doesn’t end here though. Two nights later, a week after Sara’s death, the Taps returned.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Stop scaring me even while in Heaven, you brute!

I smiled to myself.

It never was her.

But what if it was now?

What if she’d killed the ghost that had scared us for over a month?

What if she was reminding me that she’d always be her stupid self?

What if she was doing this to remind me that she was always there for me?

What if this was Sara’s way to communicate with me?

11 year old me kept wondering.

And ten years hence, she still talks to me this way.

Every alternate night.

Without fail.

Sara.