The strange thing about my new neighborhood is that the screaming happens every day. Or more precisely, every night.

It starts just before midnight and goes on way past it. Sometimes it goes on for two hours or more. With every passing minute, the screams just keep getting louder. They start with a loud scream on the first beating. Then there are numerous shrill screams of ongoing struggle. Sometimes I hear more than one voice. Some squeaking voices join the screaming sometimes, I think. After a while, the screaming subsides. The night is silent again.

For a few days after I moved here, I tolerated them. I thought maybe they will go away. But they kept getting worse.

The loud beating that accompanies the screams wrenches my heart and wakes me up every night. On some days, I feel as if it is a girl’s voice screaming, but I can never be sure. Maybe it’s a woman. Sometimes, I wonder if it’s a crying dog or some other animal. It changes every night in shrillness, so it’s tough to make a guess.

The screams are a bit distant. So it’s tough to be fully sure. I think it is in some building a few metres away from my apartment. I have not been able to spot where exactly the screams come from. But the ears don’t miss them when they happen. Every single night.

On another day last week, I felt I heard the voice of both a grown woman and a girl scream together. The man was grunting followed by their screams. I felt like stepping out and stopping it at once.

They were screaming so loudly that some other neighbours also switched on the lights. The screams stopped after that. That was because the grunting and the beating stopped, perhaps when he saw the light in our apartment from a distance, wherever he was.

It was a good tactic to stop the screams, a ploy that seemed to have worked. For a few nights, whenever the screaming started, one of us switched on the lights and then it stopped.

But this worked only for a few days, or nights. The lights could only stay on for a few minutes. It was way past midnight after all. Everyone in a decent apartment needs a good night’s sleep at that time. So the lights have to go off at some point. The screams would stop when the lights were switched on but would start again after the lights went off.

It was getting unbearable. This started becoming regular. It followed a pattern.

The voices kept getting shrill. Initially the screams were loud. They were accompanied by heavy beating. Then they got muffled. Perhaps they got tired of screaming after a while. Or exhausted, they had dropped off to sleep. Or maybe someone muffled their mouths. Or maybe they died?

No, that can’t be. I don’t think anyone died from the beating every night. It is unlikely. One can’t kill every night. I hoped so at least. Otherwise, whoever did it must be a monster. I shivered at that possibility as it entered my thoughts. I felt strongly that I should do something about this.

The screams subsided after 2 AM in general. Or if one of my neighbours switched on their lights for half an hour after midnight, sometimes the screams went on till 2.30 AM.

This was getting routine. After about fifteen days, I lost my patience. I thought it was better to do something about this screaming. I can’t take this lying down. Maybe I should gather some neighbours and together we can make a police complaint. We can’t tolerate so much beating and screaming every night.

On my walk the next morning, I met a neighbour.

“This beating and screaming that happens in our neighbourhood at night? Do you hear it every night?” I asked him.

“Screaming and beating?” he initially sounded surprised and raised his eyebrows. I wondered, for a moment, if I was the only one who heard it. I pointed to the direction from which I heard the screams. Then he realised what I was talking about.

“Oh that? Yes. Of course. It’s been going on for more than a year now. You recently shifted here?” he asked.

“Yes, I moved here two weeks back, I live in B wing. How can we tolerate so much beating and screaming in our neighbourhood? That too, at night? Why don’t we make a police complaint?” I insisted.

“Oh, yeah, it’s tough to sleep, especially for the flats in your wing. That building is closer from that side,” he informed me. Then with a sigh of resignation and despair, he continued.

“We have tried everything , I mean, including going to the police. The police also know. They can’t do much,” he said.

“The police can’t do much? With so much screaming and beating? Why?” I persisted, losing my patience.

The neighbour looked down and about. Then he moved a bit closer to me and whispered.

“What can they do? It’s run by a local goon. It was a mistake to allow such people in a decent neighbourhood like ours. But we can’t do much. The local politician is in his pocket. He has got all the permissions, and everyone covered,” he said.

“Permissions? One day when someone dies, we don’t want to regret,” I put my best foot forward, with my eyebrows raised to my forehead, unable to take it anymore.

He gave me a sly smile and patted me on my shoulder, as he continued on his morning walk.

“But what can we do? People in our apartment want fresh meat in the morning,” he said. “This butchery, I tell you, is a weird business.”

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Ranjit Kulkarni‘s work has appeared in Literary Yard, Indian Periodical, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Potato Soup Journal, Setu Journal and a collection of short stories is expected by the end of 2021. More details about his work can be accessed at https://www.ranjitkulkarni.com.