The Strange Swing

This is a story my dad used to tell me when I was a little kid and it's a true story.

It happened during the time of the 70s, when my dad was 4 years old. My dad told me that they used to have a bench swing at their old house, but they had to remove it after they had a weird incident in that house.

My grandfather was a hard working blacksmith. And he was quite known in the town for his hard and brilliant work. He had built a large metallic bench swing and put it in the middle of the courtyard.

He built the swing for the happiness of his children. Because he would often come home late at night due to work and he was happy to see the smiles on the faces of his children.

Back then, everything was going fine.

Until one early morning, my grandfather was doing wudhu (ablution that all muslims have to do before starting a prayer) and was getting ready to go to the local mosque for his fajr (sunrise) prayer.

While doing wudhu, he heard some rustling and squeaky noises from outside of the bathroom window. It was like someone was playing on the swing.

But he ignored it and assumed it was the morning winter breeze, rustling through the garden trees.

When he was done, he got out to go to the mosque. The swing was situated in the middle courtyard. His eyes fell on the metallic bench swing, and he was shocked to see that it was going back and forth on it's own.

I know that some people would think that a swing moving on it's own is a superstition or maybe a strange phenomenon.

But he knew that it wasn't a doing of the weather, it was something else.

They say that djinns play with the things of someone's house at night and before sunrise.

I don't know if that's a superstition or not, but it's better to be safe than sorry. My grandfather recited ayat ul kursi and after sometime the swing stopped moving.

After that, he always locked it at 7:30 pm before going to bed, and oddly enough… there were no more sounds at morning.

Later, he removed the swing from the house, but he never forgot those rustling noises that he heard from outside of the window.

He passed away in 2007.

And It's still a story I tell to this day.