Photograph by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash

In the morning, between 7-8, the same woman would start shouting

Baby! Baby!

Incessantly. Imagine how you got scolded by your parents when you wouldn't stop calling them or pulling their clothes for urgent attention. This mysterious woman kept calling a certain baby that quickly. The hardest part was to wake up to this voice everyday. The inflection in her voice of how she called this certain baby, who was somehow up every morning at the same time, was numbing and irritating.

To help you make a mental picture of the sound, say 'baby' with amplitude of your voice as the same as the value on y axis, over the duration of your saying 'baby' —

For over a year that I've lived here in this flat on the ground floor, I assumed it was maybe a very enthusiastic and loving household help, who brought the home baby out on a stroll. But why would she keep calling the baby when the baby would be with her?

Last week I finally undid the curtains to see what this fuss was all about. Turned out

It was a society day worker, who would water the plants and play with our neighbour's baby everyday, calling the baby from afar —

Baby! Baby!

Though it's still irritating, instead of getting up fussed up about it, I shake a smile.

Case solved.