Here’s a collection of spooky anecdotes. These incidents happen to members of my family, at different times of our lives, including myself. No blatant manifestation of white-robed women or headless bodies here, but strange stuff all the same.

The Leaf
This incident happened to my parents when they were still dating, back in the 60’s. The details were not that clear, but this is how it goes, if memory serves me well. One evening, they were taking a walk down Changi, near the beach. After some distance, they began to notice a persistent rustling sound, much like leaves stirring in the wind, following them. So from time to time, they would turn around to determine the source and began to notice a palm-sized dark-coloured dried leaf, *following* them. The leaf would stand upright and skitter after them as if it was blown by the breeze (when there is no wind at all) and settle face-down once either mom or dad turn to look. Finally, dad decided enough was enough. He stepped on that persistent leaf. Both mom and him said that they felt a cold force sweeping through their bodies the moment dad (literally) put his foot down. The leaf disappeared. A group of young men, who were playing takraw nearby, must have seen my mom’s distress and went to them at once. When dad related the incident to them, the young men affirmed that such incidents do happen from time to time. “What happened next?” I asked dad. “Took your mom for a cup of coffee,” was his pragmatic reply.

Bushy Head
Now, this happened to both my elder brother and I, on separate occasions. There was this creature that we both saw, and called it ‘the big bushy head’. Go ahead and have a laugh; I will grant you that it’s a pretty silly name. We laugh when we talk about it too. My brother saw it in the kitchen of our previous house. (The kitchen is longish in built and requires two lights to fully light it up. If you turn off one light that section will be pretty dim.) At the moment he saw it, one of the kitchen lights was off. According to him, the creature was crouching in the shadowy part of the kitchen. It looked as if it had a lion’s head, with a human body, and is greenish-tan in colour. Now can you understand why we call it such? According to my brother, the head was bent down and he couldn’t see the face. That’s probably a good thing too. I saw it in the same kitchen, when I was a little tyke. And to make matters interesting, I recall it crawling towards me, this thing with a big, bushy head, slender human body and coloured dirty greenish-tan all over. But I can’t remember what happened after that, only that I didn’t feel threatened or scared.

Home Sweet Home?
Our current home had been vacant for three years before we moved in. When we moved in during the late 80’s, my kid brother was about 6 years old. In the afternoons, when most of us were in school or at work, only he and our mom would be at home. During these times he would refuse to be alone in any given room in the house, commenting something to the effect that the house was too ‘lonely and echo-ey’. I would myself confess that during the first few years of living in this house, there is a sense of another presence whenever you are alone. (But then again, if one has a powerful imagination, it’s easy to scare oneself.)

At certain times in the night, we could hear dishes in our kitchen clacking loudly as if someone took them out of the drying rack when everyone is nowhere near that area. But this phenomenon happen too often for us to think it as something too strange. It may be gravity at work. Then again, it may not.

And then there was the bedroom door… Whenever my brothers turn in, they would either shut their room door or leave it ajar just a tiny bit. One night, when my kid brother was lying in bed, the bedroom door (which was slightly ajar) began to move slightly, forwards first then backwards. He got up (brave young man) and went to check the windows near his room to ascertain that it was just the breeze passing through the house. Apparently, though his own windows were open, the other windows nearby were not. Our parents’ bedroom door, which was opposite his was shut too. Correct me if I am wrong, but if there is no outlet for cross ventilation, could there space for incoming moving air? I don’t know, I’ve never been too smart in that area. I’d like to hear some theories, possibly about faulty hinges…

And then again, there was that bit about my CD player. When I was a student some time ago, I had a really crazy schedule. Often I would nap first before waking up in the wee hours to meet my deadlines. There was one night when I woke up and still groggy, continued to lie in bed. That was when my CD player started up itself and played Savage Garden’s. “Truly, Madly, Deeply” twice. I wasn’t frightened. Simply thought that it was freaky. But, hey, if the resident supernatural entity decided to play DJ for me, I might as well get used to it. I should have left something less sappy and more upbeat in the CD player the next time, though.
[Posted at: An Anthology]