The spiral staircase was behind me top right …….
Chapter 1
My CCTV in the house is not working today.
It is ok. There is nothing that anyone would want to take from my house, unless he is desperate to go into jail. But no sane person would want to be incarcerated, unless he has run out of money, and he wants the state to provide for him.
The most expensive item in the house is Buddy my dog. Yes, I value him more than anything else in the house. He is priceless.
Things become priceless when you cannot get a replicate or even a similar item. Or when it is attached to some memory.
My recent memory has always been poor. That is because I tend to forget the present. I do not make an effort to remember them. So, you shouldn’t ask me what I had for lunch, or who I spoke to yesterday, as I would not be able to tell you, even if it were immediately before that. All I can tell you, is that I eat too fast, or maybe I was thinking of something else when I was eating. But I think the best answer I can give you, is that I don’t enjoy food.
“Then, may I ask you, what do you survive on? If you don’t eat?”
I try not to pray too often. Deuteronomy 8:3 says that man does not live by bead alone, but by every word that comes out from the mouth of the Lord. My mother is the one who prays, and I objected to her doing this. How would she know what I want? Her petitions might have been inconsistent with mine, and it could void all that effort I put into praying, and after much scolding from me, she gave up. And she prayed only for herself nowadays.
I live by vitamins, they are useful even if they have no effective purpose, as they give me the assurance that I am being looked after by the pharmaceutical companies. They are just powders grinded and put in capsules form, but when they arrive on my plate, they become food.
Chapter 2
I was at the Church bookshop the Abby this afternoon, and I flipped to the Revelations, straight away as I became very excited after I could see that it was the future wanting to creep into the present. That was a Book that no one understood and is not being attempted to be understood. If history repeats itself, then we need to go into Genesis every morning where we began and start from Day One.
“You start from Chapter 16,” a woman came up to me and said, “No, it’s too soon!” I shouted and then I realised that I was alone in the Abby, and that she was merely a stranger, without any associations with me.
The cashier left the moment he saw me. And only after I raised my voice then he peeped up his head from under the counter to attend to me, “why are you hiding from me? Why didn’t you tell me that you are here?”
Meekly he replied, “I thought you saw me coming in,” “since when?” I almost shouted at him.
The cashier heard me, and he was satisfied that someone was in the Abby with him.
Today the police are still looking for the murderer of Veronica. And the file lay quietly amongst the rest of the unsolved crimes.
Buddy was beside me when I came home.
Chapter 3
My husband Arden never forgets to pray. As his father once told him before, “Pray my child, and God will forgive you.”
On the other side of the continent, in a small town in Sulawasi, the husband of Veronica was waiting for his daughter to be born. They call her Lady Pink even before she was conceived.
Lady Pink was pretty and sweet when she was born. Small and tiny, her father gave her his set of beady eyes and immediately told her to stay still until someone comes and picks her up. She waited in the small crib, and she heard noises in the bedroom. But she couldn’t distinguish who they were, and what they were talking about.
One day my mother’s best friend Lydia came to visit me. According to the locals, her name was Elizabeth, but still, Lydia did not carry me or remove me from my tiny little crib. I waited until a nice benevolent woman came by and picked me up. She immediately brought me to another lady, and said, “your daughter”.
Lydia blinked her eyes several times, whereupon she was brought to another woman who had been lying next to her for quite some time. The woman was tired. But yet she took over and held me in her arms for a while, then I was put back into the crib to be sent out for the nurses for some other scrubbing jobs.
The nurses were mumbling, “in your anger do not sin,” that was the first sentence she heard in the bathroom where she was being cleaned up.
And then they walked up the stairs and carried her upstairs. So there! This must be upstairs, “one step at a time,” she heard one woman telling the other. This is the most logical, derived answer. Lady Pink was beginning to use her brains.
Chapter 4
Annie didn’t know where they brought her to, for they were so quick and efficient that, within minutes, she was returned to the crib. Afterwards, she heard someone talking again.
Veronica blinked several times, before she went down the bed to rest. Now she remembers the spiral staircase, where her mother carried her up in the small town to the neighbourhood school and the helper Maria sitting beside her trying to snatch the baby girl away from her,
“Give her to me,” “No,” and they tussled along the narrow winding steps of the staircase. It would only take one lapse of the hand strike and disaster would have happened.
The car was cursing along the muddy and stoney road. Arden was on his way home.
And then suddenly Veronica heard God’s voice, “Pray my dear, and God will forgive you.” She released the grasp, and Maria let go of the baby. “The child belongs to her mother,” God said to Maria this time. Thank God there was a net below.
Afterwards, Maria went and sat on the church bench which Arden bought from an antique store, the helper sat on it, she prayed and Lady Pink saw tears streaming down her face.
Instantly Lady Pink realised that Maria was a proxy of the devil, but her mother continued to hire her.
To kill.
Veronica sat on the spiral steps, having expanded all of her energy, and having to calm her baby down, she left Maria and went up into her bedroom. She lay the baby quietly in the cot, and then she went straight into the wardrobe and cleared his things out.
“She must leave by midnight today.”
Sebastian was at work, he heard the phone rang, and he quickly picked it up, knowing that it was from his mother-in-law.
“Go home straight away, and pack all your things,” she ordered him.
“Why?” Sebastian asked.
“Don’t ask any questions, we have no time,” Mother said.
“But I am at work now,” Sebastian was unhappy.
“Just do as I say.” Mother ordered again.
Sebastian noticed that his other colleague who shared the same room was looking at him, and he said, “Michael, my wife is ill again,”
“Ill? She was very well when I visited her last night after work, remember? She even joked that you should find another wife to give you a son, since she has closed her factory already,”
“Oh, you mean the production factory?” Sebastian replied.
“What other goods are you producing?” Michael answered.
“Can’t think of any other,” the husband reminiscent.
“Ok, the key to my drawer is here, together with the key to the other files, and then, if you don’t hear from me by 4:00 p.m. this afternoon, please apply for leave for me for the day. Tell them I have urgent things to attend to at home.”
Micheal picked up the form from his in-tray, and he wrote, “trouble at home,” under the “reason” column. Of course, Sebastian has already rushed off for the day.
The ride home was surprisingly smooth, he beat four traffic lights in a row, and he left the car outside the lane without even parking it in the garage. He didn’t want to use the gate, as he was afraid to let the occupants in the house to know that he was coming back. He knew that the atmosphere at home greeting him would be unfriendly.
Chapter 5
Maria was standing just outside the kitchen, and she was wearing a black top and a pair of jeans. The jeans had several cuts from the knee and below, and threads were strewn across the open holes. Apart from the unusual attire, the woman’s face was pale and her hair was frizzled, as though she had just woken up from a nightmare and needed a good scrub.
But her demeanour was calm. She spoke, “Sir, Marm with Marm, Marm hospital ……”
Sebastian was shocked, but he remained calm, “Where? Which hospital?” “Who drive?”
“Don’t know sir …… a man …… ”
“Car long or short, big or small?” Sebastian wanted to establish if it were an ambulance.
“Err …… don’t know sir,” the woman stammered.
“Shit!” Sebastian rushed out to the car, he wanted to drive out to the hospital to look for his wife and child.
Only when he started the engine, he then realised that he had not a clue as to which hospital they might have gone to.
He went back into the house again, and then he saw his wife on the front porch of his neighbour. She was talking to the owner of house number 13. The man was in the car whilst she was standing by the passenger’s side with the door opened. In her arms, baby Annie was seen kicking away, but the pair paid no attention to the fuss.
Common sense told him not to react, but Sebastian rushed forward, and he picked up Annie from Veronica’s arms, almost pushing her onto the car with the engine running at full speed. The car charged out of the porch with the reverse gear, leaving Veronica bewildered. Sebastian brought Annie back into the house, and there his mother-in-law was waiting.
“How come you took so long?” the mother-in-law asked.
“I came as fast as I could,” the husband said.
“You know, she almost gave the baby away, to the neighbour ……” he continued.
“What nonsense! She was just chatting with a friendly man.” She retorted.
“Too friendly.” Sebastian pronounced, leaving his mother-in-law wordless, he turned to the helper Maria and shouted, “next time don’t tell lies,”
“Sir, …… I never ……”
Annie started to cry ……
Just at this time, Veronica walked back into the house. Sebastian had no choice but to surrender the baby girl back to her mother.
“What did you do to her?” she asked quizzically.
“I wanted to feed her,” he choked up an excuse.
“Feed her? How? Don’t you realise that she takes breast milk?” Veronica laughed.
Sebastian muttered under his breath, bitch!
And then the other neighbour the next door’s German Shepherd started to bark, “Woof, woof, woof, ……
Chapter 6
“Where do you want to go?” asked Maria.
“Anywhere, just take me on a bus,” Veronica said.
A bus? Why does she want me to accompany her on the bus? The helper thought to herself.
The bus driver Yan who stopped right in front of the two was perturbed, as he had never seen Maria before, he too also looked too expensive to get on the public transport, but nonetheless he followed her wishes.
After Sebastian boarded the bus with Maria, he found a group of Filipina helpers seated, as though they were waiting for him to turn up. They were all yaking in Tagalog. Automatically he sat next to one of them a lady. He turned and saw the one seated next to him on the left and couldn’t help peeping at her handphone, since the minute he sat down she started texting. His eyes beamed when he found that she had the name of a lady on her wallpaper and listing her as a contact.
Huh? What is that supposed to mean? Did she come here to institute legal proceedings? Or was she already in hot water?
Puzzled, he asked, “do you need my help?” for he was also a lawyer. To which she fired him at once, “You are not my witness.”
“Huh?” “Of course, I am not your witness, where is your Madam’s house?”
“In the Philippines.” She spoke.
“Oh then, you must be here on a holiday,”
“No, I am here on a mission trip ……” she said.
“Oh, are you a missionary or something?”
“Nope, I am here …… just to take some photos …… “
“Ahh then enjoy your holiday,” Sebastian gave her his final word, before adding,
“Btw, don’t forget to carry your passport with you when you leave.”
“At this instance Sebastian took out his Sanrio card and checked for the fare. But it says, “Simply Go” when he tapped.
“Are they telling me to leave now?”
Just at this juncture, the Filipina lady came up to him and said, “Sir, you forgot your wallet,”
OMG! She had a wallet in her to tempt me as well!!!
But of course, I can recognize my own wallet. So, Sebastian got curious, “how much money do you have?”
“Enough to buy you dinner,” the woman made an unequivocal offer.
“Err …… Sebastian tried not to offend her, as he realized that Maria was watching him.
“Tomorrow.” He pronounced a date, and he promptly fled the scene, forgetting that Maria was still up there.
“Hey! Wait for me sir!” Maria yelled.
Yan heard, Sebastian almost got his foot tracked in the doorway just before alighting.
It was only three miles later before he could catch up with Maria.
The next day, Sebastian called Maria up and said, “Maria, next time please grab hold of my hand when I go out from the wrong door,”
“But sir, Molest!”
“Huh? Who?”
“If I grab your hand, means I molested you, but if you allow me to garb means you consent to it,”
This time Sabastian got fuming mad. If you cannot touch me, I cannot touch you. You please leave at once!
“Thank you sir!” Maria was so pleased with the final order that she went into her room to pick up her luggage. Sebastian was shocked that she needed no time to pack her luggage.
Oh, she got it all planned.
Chapter 7
I pilloried Veronica the moment I got home.
“Where is the monkey?” Sebastian asked.
“What monkey?” his wife was innocent.
Sebastian was reading the newspapers before he got home. His colleagues were making fun of him. “Ah Meng! Is this what you used to call your wife?”
They realized that I have escaped from the zoo this morning.
“You removed the monkey from the window grill this morning; it is always there; it is always there hanging on the grill bars. The third diamond from the right, and the fifth one down. I distinctly saw it there, it has always been there, I don’t move it around.
Veronica cried. Why would I want to do that? Why would I want to move a monkey about?
I know that you did it.
“Do what?” Veronica shouted.
“Move the monkey!” Sebastian shouted as well.
“Ok, if that’s what you want me to do,” the wife went up.
Chapter 8
She looked pristine, almost as though she was a bride on her way to the church, except that she wasn’t in a white gown.
Sebastian looked at her, you couldn’t say that he wasn’t mesmerised. But he kept his cool, “call the lawyer,” he said.
Father used to tell me that if you find a woman pretty and you are not jealous of her, then it means that you must have been a gay.
“Huh?” and then immediately she picked up her device from her pocket and rang someone.
“ …… “ this is the first time he had heard her speaking in Tagalog. It sounded like a waterfall coming down from 3 meters high. Why I used 3 meters as a measure no one knows. But I think that it was about the right height for her resonance.
He let her finish. And then he asked, “who were you speaking to?”
“Isabella Monika“
“Who is she? And why are you calling her?” Sebastian was curious.
“You said call the lawyer right, sir?” Veronica replied.
He almost fainted. “I was taking to madam, not you!” “And what did you tell the lawyer?”
“Err …… I told them that my husband wanted me to move house.
She must be out of her mind. So, I can tell the lawyer that she was insane. He felt complacent again.
“Stop.” Mother said. Veronica felt something of a shot across a bow.
“What did you see on the bus the other day?” Mother-in-law asked.
“A woman was hurrying me down the bus. As a result, I couldn’t find Maria.”
“Why did you entertain her?” Mother said.
“I don’t know.” He replied.
“Probably it is because I wasn’t wearing my wedding band.” Sebastian suggested.
“Yes, if the husband wears a ring and the wife is found not wearing it, it is a suggestion that these two do not want to declare their marital status.” Mother said.
“So, were you wearing the ring when you boarded the bus with Maria the other day?”
“I can’t quite remember.” Sebastian replied.
”Was Maria wearing hers?” Mother asked.
“Mar …… “ Sebastian turned and shouted, before he realised that the help was no longer in the house.
So, it must have been the lady in the bus who called Maria, to tell her to leave my employ. And then she contacted the lawyer in her handphone to advice Maria on what to do next. Why did Maria want to leave?
Sebastian decided to indulge in some pastries. He went into the fridge to look for some cakes and sweets. Instead, he found two bars of chocolates staring at him. He took the Mint Intense dark chocolate before realising that it was too sweet. He immediately threw it away into the nearest bin.
Finally, Sebastian heard his father’s voice, “in my father’s house there are several rooms, otherwise I would not have told you about it.“ This came straight from John 14:2-3, the man recalled.
He woke up from deep thought, his face inclined to the right, and he opened my eyes. Waking up, he saw a woman’s face. OMG! This seems to be the woman that he had heard it from, several times over, and it comes straight from the All-Saints’ Church.
NO! NO! NO! I am born now!!!
Chapter 9
I have my own little body and a crib to keep me safe. How can you say that I was still in my mother’s womb? Could this crib be in another house?
As far as I am concerned, this crib is my house, and this is much better than the womb that I was prior to coming life.
I love this life, and I love the sound of music. Oh yeah boy, my neighbor Julie Andrews was the one who keeps playing the piano. I tried to recall the past. And I quite remember that I had no neighbours whilst I was resting peacefully in the nice wrapped up zone that I was in. My right ear zoomed in ……
“Where did you get your degree from?” A woman asked a man, “Emmanuel” he said.
“Why Emmanuel? You come from England right? Emmanual is it in England or in Singapore?”
“Of course, England, you dummy!” the man said, followed by, “Couldn’t you tell from my accent?”
Immediately I traced the source. Finally, I gave a sigh, and I let go of the haunting thought. And then I fell asleep again …… quietly and silently I calmed myself down, and then I waited for a signal to wake me up.
“Wake up! Wake up!” a woman came before hurrying away again.
“Hey! Can’t you stay for a while longer?” Annie started to get angry.
“But I am still small and my palm is tiny,” Annie spoke.
But no one heard me.
No one can read your thoughts, baby.
I did not cry.
Finally, I gave up, seems like after several decades, two nurses came. One stood on the right and the other on the left. They saw and they laughed at me, “so small and she wants to fight hahaha …… “ and they walked away. I was left alone.
Evening came, and it was day two.
In the morning Lydia came over again. “Veron, if you like buns, I could get it for you, “Immediately?” “Yes, this instance.” I waited for a long time, and then I decided it was time I eat, “waaah, waaah, …… I cried.
“Keep quiet, will you?” I heard my mother cried, and I cried even louder ……
Finally, she gave up, and she carried me up and got out of the bed, and she passed me to another man. Man looked at me and he smiled. I was happy again.
Chapter 9
Sebastian started driving his own car, allowing the Google to guide him.
“Straight up, turn left, go straight, until you reach the bend, and then U-turn, followed by another U-turn, go straight, when you see the highway, take the left lane …… he reached the causeway checkpoint. And then he heard, “boleh kosong”. He looked out, wound down his window, and he looked at the woman in navy blue uniform. “Ok, you can go into Malaysia now,” he paused, and then he heard a loud bang!
He thought someone had fired a gun. Immediately he ducked his head. “Can’t be, Singapore is very safe,” he thought to himself. “Could be they opened my luggage compartment to check, he waited a few minutes. No other sound. “Damn it! They didn’t close it back for me,” He became impatient. He opened his door to get out to examine if they had put anything inside his luggage to frame him.
The minute he got out, he realized that he had been framed.
“Safety is our prime concern. Let’s watch some videos to get more inspiration.” The man behind the control room said.
And all they wanted was to see the colour of his tie.
