Bamboo Grove by the Brook

Part 1 - The Bamboo Grove

That year the beginning of November brought a lot of rain in Nairobi. Nikki was standing alone in the vast playground adjoining the campus. It rained heavily a few days back. The field was still soggy with puddles of water here and there. Summer should be approaching but till now there is no sign of that due to rain. Nairobi river, which flows at the end of the field, has only ankle-deep water during summer & winter. However, now the usual murmur has turned into a thunderous roar. Nikki shivered a little - partly due to the chilly wind that was biting the unprotected part of her skin & partly out of fear.

It was already late afternoon. Sun would set in another half hour. She wrapped the jacket tightly around her and stepped forward. In another hundred meters or so ahead lay the little wooden bridge across the stream. As she came closer the sound of the turbulent rush became more prominent. Even a couple of days ago the water level was above the bridge and the field was flooded. Though the water has receded it still touched the side of the bridge. Nikki stood against the wooden railings and nervously stared at the brownish mass swirling and rising chaotically. She feared the bridge might give in under the influence of this raw power. With a few long strides, she crossed the bridge. The dirt road beyond the bridge wound through the slope and led to the university campus.

Both sides of the road were lined with thick bamboo forest. Long branches of the older trees bent over and made an arch. This stretch was always dark and rather damp. Not much sunlight found enough chance to get in. The place always had a kind of eerie silence interspersed with the chirping of crickets. Nikki found something amiss - yeah, she was right; for the first time, she did not hear the sound of a single insect. Was their chirping drowned by the noise of the water or did they all die in the flood - she wondered. She noticed the accumulation of mud and debris on the ground beneath the trees.

Nikki felt rather spooky about this place. When she was a little girl she believed some kind of ancient creature lived in there. Today amidst this shadowy darkness, in the imminence of sunset, with no sound but that of a flooded brook and her own breathing, that old feeling again stirred in her.
Suddenly a strong wind rose. Nikki heard a hushed muttering rising from the depth of the grove. The words of Mama Njeri rang in her ear - when the winds rise in the forest, the soft susurration of the branches that you hear are actually the voices of the ancient spirits. As a fifteen-year-old, she thought those were mere child's tales - or were they?