Ghost! What Ghost?

They said a monument was erected at that place. A gentleman, neighbour and friend of mine with his screen name Berlingo took trouble to track down the monument at the crash site of Japan Airlines that plummeted to the ground in a botched landing attempt at Subang Airport way back in 1977, on September 27, to be precise. It was reported that 34 out of 79 passengers and crew were perished in the incident. The crash site is situated in Elmina Estate, at the mouth of the gateway to our place, Saujana Utama.

Berlingo’s quest was inspired by a tease in our community forum about ghostly figures & phantoms and strange noises that were reported being seen and heard apart from some other inexplicable occurrences experienced by people. The conscientious head honcho igniting the rag was Kudin. It is believed that due to the people were killed, aptly to scene of carnage in the area, it in some way, our neighbourhood become haunted. This is an account from my neighbour KC in her blog.

I don’t know how far the truth is. As far as I am concerned I still laugh off over the buzz. I even challenged on the possibility of meeting a ghostly figure myself. But then, I am not too sure how I would react if the figure really appears right before me though. I hope I won’t be frozen to death! In jest, I even said wanting to meet up with a phantom of Al-Tantuya, a Mongolian lady of whom was depleted to bits with explosives after being shot dead on her fateful night last year. The ferocity took place some kilometers away from our place. It became big news in the country not only due to the brutality that had been but also when it was convoluted with VIP’s involvement.

CRUMBLED MONUMENT: It proofs that the tragedy has slipped off from people’s minds after 30 years it happened. It serves as a reminder that after some time of our passing, we would well be forgotten also.

Courtesy: Berlingo






OVERLOOKING THE HIGHWAY: Nobody knew the site would then be as it is now and I never thought of staying in a place I call home not far from it.

Courtesy: Berlingo

Speaking of haunted and ghosts thing, when I was a boy of 11 years, it was said that Wak Lah, a bomoh in our area, was in possession of a skull of a man from Thailand who was hacked to death and decapitated. The skull was kept in a huge ceramic vase (tempayan) under his house wrapped in layers of yellow cloths. The tempayan itself looked scary enough with the moss covered the outer part of it, dusty on the lid made out of hardwood. Let alone when the house was old and spooky, far off from other neighbours’, surrounded by creepy big trees with leaves pouting at the top that it gets dark early in a day. The “kemenyan” scent was the fragrance of choice in the house – perhaps due to Ambi Pur was not in business yet.

For some odd reason we found it ridiculous to ask adults whether the skull was really in there or not. At least that was the talk among us kids. We kids believed what we decided to believe. It was also said that, when past midnight, if you were to bring an egg as an offering to the spirit, you’d see a long slithering tongue protrude over licking the egg in your hand but your life would be spared. It wouldn’t break the egg, left it intact but once you crack open, you’d find it empty.

I had a funny idea together with my buddy Ariff. We planned for an offering just to see the slinking swathe of the ghost’s tongue feasting on egg.

On that particular night as planned, we were all ready but it was a bad start when neither one of us wanted to hold the egg in hand but just to be a spectator. I had the egg stolen from granny’s fat chicken in the den. After some arguments in the dark, I gave in when we came to term that he had to be next to me all the way through, holding hands. There we go; I was the one with the egg in hand that would be the master of the show.

We walked ever so slowly approaching the bomoh’s house with the tempayan as a spot marked as X. You couldn’t imagine our heartbeats at that moment even when we were actually still some 100 meters away from the spot. Goosebumps were like thousands of small nipples enveloped the whole body, hairs sticking up like a porcupine. It felt like the heart was jumping off the chest. Every tiny sound of anything seemed to be too outrageous. In the compound of the house, some 20, 30 meters away from the target, it was so dark that we could hardly see each other’s face but the path we walked was not strange to us.

After number of stops and hesitance, double-checking on our motivations and the barometer of our confidence, we were finally under the roofed side of the house with the tempayan was only some 5 meters away at the “tiang seri” (major pillar) under the house. The moment we were about to duck for head clearance to enter beneath the house floor, I felt Ariff’s hand jerked as if he was puling off, brought a heavy gust of blood in me, not to mention sweating profusely, breathing ever so short. In reaction to that, I shuddered just as much. Upon feeling I had the same reaction; Ariff displayed sign of aggravation. I swear I could hear his heartbeat racing with mine, even louder when we hit the same note at the same time.

It happened in just a matter of seconds when the fusion of scare in us escalated rapidly from double to triple, from triple to quadruple and kabaam-boom just like the multiplications of nuclei joining together in atomic fusion of the atomic bomb. And so did to what entailed in our chaotic reactions whether to defy or to recoil from our hallucinations and deliriums created in our minds as if we were cornered by spirits, with long, slithering and menacing tongues everywhere around us. As far as I can remember, I took a step back. Ariff did just as many but with greater speed and longer span, followed by my other step back with a speed to counter his but overdone. Then he stepped back faster and longer. I copied and added, so did he. And it went on and on in that short period of time until we finally found ourselves split and running like crazy, just followed our gut feelings not knowing what we would hit in the dark. “Hungga sapa kecik ppalo-ppalo” (read: Run helter skelter until the head shrinks). That must be the fastest run in my life that possibly beat the hell out of Ben Johnson of my age.

Fortunately all trees were left unharmed and we didn’t hit square to the barbed wire fence when we maneuvered the tough corner that would put Michael Schumacher or Mick Doohan to shame, escaped with only some cuts I called it scratches that good enough to bleed and had it nursed for weeks. We were also lucky for not trampled into cow dung, except for the torn kain pelikat that had to give way to serious punching of long steps taken with legs spread wider than the rhythmic gymnasts would – as stupendous as a speedy-chicken Road Runner.

The egg was dropped somewhere at the back or it could’ve had crushed in my grip. The grip was perhaps so forceful that if it was a rock in my hand, the rock would’ve turned diamond. I can testify to that slimy thing in my hand that I later found, it was the crushed egg – confirmed it was not cow dung.

And I became the prime suspect for the missing egg that tagged with a serial number and bar-coded by granny!

Just another foiled mission for a close encounter with the spirit and ghost, as what I thought, but I actually met many "ghosts" and "vampires" in the broad daylight in the real life.

What about you, met any ghosts before?

Note: Now I am developing a habit of asking question at the end of my entry.