UGLYM3N

If there's something strange
in your neighborhood
Who ya gonna call?
GHOSTBUSTERS

If there's something weird
and it don't look good
Who ya gonna call?
GHOSTBUSTERS

kekeke…

what i'm going to write below is something true. there will be 2 types of people who after reading this will:
1. say this is total bullshit
2. say i'm damn unlucky

the story starts like this:

once upon a time, i used to have a maid (her name was suyati and today is her birthday) who has been working for me for 5 years. she just left last year in october. and a new maid was going to replace her in november. this new maid (her name is tina) used to work for someone else but she just wanted to move on to a new boss and decided to work for us when my maid told her that she was leaving for good. tina eventually replaced my previous maid, suyati.

tina left her former boss last year in july and came to work for us starting 7 november 2008. she has 2 kids and her husband passed away when she was working with her former boss. alas, she didn't get to see her husband when he died. when she came to work for us last november, she bacame tired and said that everytime when she wakes up, her body feels heavy.

a few weeks ago, i came back from work early because i was exhausted. i went straight to my room and sleep. then when i woke up, ah yin told me that tina “saw” me walking past the dining area and wanted to call me. but that was NOT possible because i was sleeping. tina said she saw someone who had big built body, tall, fat and wore light (white) colored clothing walking. we disfused the story as a mirage (seeing things) and thought that the maid might have been working too much and tired. but over the next few days, weeks, she kept having dreams of her dead father coming to protect her and also coming to “bring” her back. tina was still tired from day to day work. she had weird dreams, tired throughout the day and felt heavy when she wakes up.

last saturday, i went for prayers at the nearby temple (a place where hooi and i used to pray). and during that nite, the medium was in trance with “tua pek iah” (big uncle police from hell) taking over his body. a bit confusing for some of you guys… a medium who is someone in prayer and invites a god/deity to take over his body. this is a chinese culture (taoism) which i can't explain more than that because i am not well versed and don't understand some of the terms and practises. i just know that my maid had weird experiences working for us.

i told “tua pek iah” about my maid's case: “ah pek, i have a maid who saw me walking one day when i was actually sleeping. she said she had weird dreams that her father wanted to bring her away and she felt tired working or even after waking up”.

tua pek iah said “your maid is seeing things in your apartment. her name is tuna, right?”

i was shocked and told him “ya… her name is tina. can you see anything?”

tua pek iah added “when your maid is with you, she brought in a soul back to your apartment and this soul is trapped in your apartment. the GHOST is not able to get out from your apartment now and it is loitering (lepak) there. (then he counted some numbers using his fingers). this ghost is harmless and will not do anything to your family. this ghost however, has an “attachment” to your maid. they are fated to meet.” at that point of time, i quickly decided to “remove” the *thing* out from my apartment. i asked tua pek iah if i can remove the ghost out from my apartment. he said can. he said i need to inform the medium when he wakes up. the medium is also my friend who has practised… sorcery (not sure if this is the right word). he said the activity must be carried out before 9.30am in the morning. he is a chinese ghostbuster. just like the priest trying to fight away the demons in poltergiest movie.

i told the medium's brother to inform him when he “wakes up” from his trance.

the next day (sunday), as expected, the brother has forgotten to inform his brother. luckily i called him earlier at 8am and he called his brother. i got in touch with the medium and he was at my apartment by 9.30am.

the medium inspected my apartment and “spoke” to our “goddes of mercy” (Guan Im) which we have placed on the avatar. he then told me everything about the ghost that is wondering around my apartment. it can't go out as it was trapped since it cannot move passed the avatar where the goddess of mercy is placed. he told me that the ghost will not harm us but will stay in our apartment for as long as the maid is with us. he said we can either:
1. fire off the maid and send her back to indonesia
2. “invite” the ghost out from the apartment and helped it to do re-incarnation. the lost soul has wandered and has skipped past the normal burial ceremony.

i told him i want to do the latter.

he did some prayers and placed a book and a square box of chinese compass (shape like a pak kua) underneath our dining table because the ghost was standing less than 2 meters from the dining table. the square box will suck in the ghost and he told us NOT to touch or disturb the square box. he said he will return to collect back the soul at night. he said everyone must sleep by 10pm especially the kids. we agreed and he went back.

we had our things as usual at home. we had lunch and do normal things. the WEIRD thing is that we were not scared of anything. it sounded exciting but in reality its a bit boring cause nothing seems to happen.

the medium came back at night. he came into our apartment and prepared some papers. i was expecting him to bring:
1. his sorcerer sword
2. witchcraft costume
3. portable table with yellow cloth, red candles, dragon joss-sticks and chicken blood
4. 2 dumbass disciples

shit, none of the above happened.

when the lights are off, he began to sit next to the box of chinese compass and start to do his stuff. he did some prayers, folding some papers and pulled over box of compass. there was a string of paper folding noise (about 30 seconds). i was sitting at the sofa watching him. he stood up, did some gestures and continued with more prayers. the last thing i saw him doing was: he's wrapping the box with papers and placed it inside a paper box. the paper box said “BUM EQUIPMENT”… mah leh… tulan.

then its done!

wah lau eh… total bore man…

i spoke to the medium and he told me that the string of paper folding noise was the ghost trying to get out from the box but it was being pressed down into the box. it was struggling and the noise from the box came from it trying to get out from the box. the medium told me he's bringing the ghost back to temple to do a proper burial for it (on the same night).

the ghost may be the soul of my maid's husband who died several years ago. when he dies, the maid was working for her previous employer. according to the medium, the ghost was reluctant to go to the underworld. it has unfinished business that it needs to attend… the soul may have ended in our apartment… like looking for my maid. according to my maid, the husband treated her very well. when the husband passed away, the wife was not beside him. sigh…

the whole experience was exciting at first, then a bit scared… and in the end, its a total bore. i thought something like in the movie will happened.