A Missing Key (Short-Story)

“I’m getting late, it’s okay if I don’t take tiffin to the office, they have the canteen…Mummy!” Monty shouted, tying a shoelace.

“It’s your first day of internship, atleast keep this tiffin for today, I’ve cooked poha for you, there you go, Mon!” his mother gently touched his cheek on right and handing the blue tiffin box further said, “look… take this key, maybe I’ll go to the vegetable market, so no-one will be there in the evening.’’

Monty snatched the key. And keeping the door open, he ran towards the parking zone for his bike.

Opened the bike-dicky, pulled out the helmet, he’s about to wear it and his phone began ringing. It was the unknown number. He picked up the call, thinking it was maybe someone from the office. No-one was responding. The bike dicky was unclosed. He took a few steps for the network-error.

Suddenly, a 5-year-old, Chotu, a kid of an apartment-sweeper, pulled out the key from Monty’s bike and gave it to him.

Monty had no clue what was happening and why no-one was responding. He was busy fixing the network issue.

Ten minutes later, going near to his bike, he put his purse inside and closed the dicky.

“Argh… where’s the key?” he yelled.

“Wait, no!” He removed his helmet and stared at the bike seat. For a second, he got tears in his eyes knowing the keys are inside the bike dicky.

Monty quickly called her mother. She said there’s a spare key in the locker. He climbed the stairs and sprinted to his home. He took that spare-key and finally went to the office riding a bike.

In the evening, around 6 pm, he left the office. Returned to the home. After half an hour, her mother also came home with a bag of vegetables and fruits in her hand.

“Mon…how’s your first day?” asked her mother, putting the bags aside.

“It was not-so-great. But the thing that happened to me in the morning was damn crazy.” Monty replied.

“Hehe, happens Mon… why so fuss?”

“Mummy, the keys weren’t inside my bike.”

“Wait, what are you talking about? Then where were they?”

“When I returned home, I pulled out the home-keys from my purse. Opened the door and it shocked me why my bike-keys are still not in the purse — ”

“ — So you lost it,.” shrugged her mother.

“Nooo…no… keys were already there. Right… right there inside my pocket since morning.”