What's that behind you?

Location: Singapore

The other night, Xeina came over and we got rented out some DVDs to watch. The first one was The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Watched it till the end.....and now I am totally creeped out.

Our house is kinda big. It's spread out over 3 floors, and my bedrooms on the 3rd floor. And it's just me, mum and dad living here. Mum and Dad go to sleep at like some ungodly hour of 11pm every night, and I stay up all alone until 6am every night, due to a lethal combination of regular insomnia, jet lag and a generally nocturnal disposition. Leaving me all.alone.in.the.middle.of.the.deadly.night.

I also have an unusually unhealthy imagination. Combined with a sadistic desire to scare myself silly, and subsequently regret the consequences, my every turn in this house is filled with dread, espeically since watching Emily Rose.

Why am I even admitting this to the world, I do not know. I'm 22 years old admitting that sometimes, I'm still a little scared of the dark. Isn't that just ridiculously mind-blowingly stupid?

I know though, that, after a few days, when the images from this movie have slowly ebbed away out of my mind, I will resume normal activity in our house, without constantly staring too deeply into every dark corner, and imagining that the hairs on the back of my neck are standing.

But I really sincerely believe sometimes, there are things to be afraid of. Perhaps, not in my own house, but in this world, definitely.

I liked the film, Emily Rose. It handled the concept of the spiritual world in an interesting manner, for a spook film. It displayed the debate between scientific and spiritual explanations of the occult, which, instead of deadening the world of spirits to the viewer, made it seem all the more scary. And the ending was most fascinating. The girl who eventually dies, believes that her death will result in a positive ending, which is that if, because of her, some people start believing in the devil, how can they not believe in God? Which is so true. Apparently, it is a true story, and many now revere this young lady's grave like that of a saint's.

This movie portrayed the possession of Emily Rose by something truly and purely evil. Not a human evil. Not the kind of evil that kills hundreds in a country during a genocide, because of something like racism. But a pure evil, an evil existing in mere opposition to goodness. And the thing is, I got even more spooked when I recalled an event that occurred in the home of my mother's bestfriend. And scarily enough, the details of this real life event mirror the movie a bit too similarly.

Basically, my mum's bestfriend, Aunty Jasmine had just hired a new maid from Bangladesh to live and work in their family apartment. One day, she started acting really crazy, threatening them, saying she had poisoned their dinner and so on. They got totally freaked out, and called a bomoh (a Malay priest who specialises in Exorcisms), and the next day he was told to come to their flat. Apparently, when he tried doing so the next day, he kept getting lost trying to find the flat. They lived in a HDB block of apartments, which btw, are the most common form of housing here in Singapore. You just dont get lost. You'd have to be stupid. In the film, as well, the Father who was meant to do the exorcism the next day, kept getting spooked out the night before, as though 'they' were attempting to stop him from doing the exorcism the next day. Anyway, the bomoh came, did the exorcism, and aparrently, found that there were 3 jinns posessing her. (Jinns are what Muslims believe in, instead of ghosts, spirits etc). In the film, Emily Rose had 6 demons inside her.

This is my mum's bestfriend's story. So it's quite close to home. But at the same time, I always think, heck I've never seen anything myself...so why act like such a scaredy cat? Or am I speaking too soon? [Nevermind that we grew up in Singapore reading a healthy dose of 'Singapore Ghost Stories', and I spent all summer last year listening to Javed Bhai's Jinn stories when he was visiting us here, my imagination is running to Timbuktu......]

[I think....when you are also bored, and sitting at home, waiting to find a job.....your imagination runs wilder than it normally would! (I shall take solace in that!)]