Chapter 11: Ghosts and Their Fears

I had just finished my conference call when my MSN Messenger popped out. I had got a message from Dawn.

“hi, do u find anything wrong wif Sally today?”

Sally was behaving strangely indeed. Usually she would be either talking avidly on the phone or typing stodgily on her notebook with her eyes glued to the screen. But when I turned and looked at her, I found her staring into blank space instead of into the Euromoney magazine that she was holding.

I replied Dawn on the MSN Messenger.

“yeh, she seems strange today. Why dun u ask her whether she’s ok?”
“ok, I’ll msn her”

After I finished writing one slide for my presentation, Dawn sent me a message.

“hi, I think we better go to her desk”
“why?”
“she said she had some spiritual encounter last evening”

Before I could relate “spiritual encounter” to “ghost”, Dawn, Nicky and Ju had already gathered at Sally’s desk. Dawn had once again proven that her mass communication skill was undisputed and uncontested.

“So what exactly happened?” the concerned Ju asked.

Sally clasped her hands together nervously and took a deep breath. With a pair of watery eyes, she stared at Rose and said: “I think there was a ghost here in the office last night.”

This time round, everybody else around Sally took a deep breath.

“Sally, are you sure it was not an illusion?” a wide-eyed Ju asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” Sally shook her head.
“What did you see?” Nicky asked.
“You know, last night I worked late to prepare for the coming Marketing event right? So after all of you went back, I was all alone in the office at eight plus. Then suddenly I heard some papers flipping sound at the other side of the office behind that partition there. I thought some document files fell so I walked over to take a look. But even after I walked all the way to the furthest end of the office, I could not find any document file or paper on the ground. And I didn’t hear the flipping any more as well.”
“Maybe you were too tired and you imagined that flipping sound,” suggested Ju.
“No, it can’t be! After I walked back to my desk and sat down, that flipping sound started again!” Sally hollered and clasped Ju’s arm.

Everybody stood frozen and stared at Sally.

“So I tried to call my boyfriend on my mobile phone but there was no signal strength.”
”No signal strength? You kidding me? My mobile phone’s reception here is great!” Nicky blurted.
“I’ve never had any reception problem with my mobile phone too, but last night I just couldn’t get any signal strength at all! And you know what? When I tried to use my desk phone to call him, it’s engaged! He has got a waiting line service on his mobile phone but I got an engaged tone!”

By then, Ju’s right hand was clasping Sally’s hands which are on Ju’s left hand, and Dawn was clasping Nicky’s sleeve.

“I was really very scared, so I packed up and ran out of the office as fast as I could! When I was outside the building, I tried to call my boyfriend again, and I was so happy to hear his voice on the other line!”
“And he came over to pick you up?” Ju asked.
“Yeh, and when I asked him why his mobile phone was engaged, he said that he was not using the mobile phone, and it didn’t ring at all!”

A small pearl of tear rolled down Sally’s left cheek. Her right hand struggled out of Ju’s hand to wipe off the tear quickly. Realizing that they were clasping each other too tightly, Sally and Ju let go of each other. These two ladies were really freaked out.

“But I’d ever worked here till nine plus and nothing happened,” said Nicky.
“Nicky, you’re different,” I explained. “You’ve got two dragons, one cock and one weird fish surrounding you. Those ghosts are scared of your pets!”
“Hey, my Feng Shui animals are not that scary okay? And besides, that’s a dragon carp, not a ‘weird fish’.”

“Nicky, do you think the spirits in the office are unhappy because we didn’t have any offerings for them during the seventh month?” Ju asked.

The “seventh month” referred to is the seventh month on the Chinese lunar calendar. This month-long period is also known as the “hungry ghost festival” and the Chinese believed that this is when all the dead spirits are released from hell back to the mortal world. On top of offering roast piglets, roast ducks, roast pork, fruits and other festive food stuff, the Chinese will also burn paper monies, paper clothes, paper cars, paper mahjong sets, paper cigarettes and other paper gifts to their dead relatives.

The copious paper gifts that are burnt for the dead are really fascinating but confusing. There are paper credit cards. Do these come with free ‘deadtime’ subscription? And if a spirit failed to pay his/her bill, will he/she be declared bankrupt? There are paper DVD players. But where will the DVDs come from? Are we supposed to get some DVDs from HMV and burn them? And here is the best part - paper mobile phones. What if this happens…

“Hello Beng, is that you?”
“Er… yes, may I know who’s that?”
“Beng, it’s me! Your grandfather! How can you forget my voice? I’ve only been dead for five years! You unfilial grandson!”
“Er… oh… hi, grandpa! What’s up? How’s life down there?”

Perhaps we should learn to think twice before burning anything.

“Yeh, you may be right. We didn’t even offer them any joss-sticks,” Nicky mused.
“But why will there be any spirit in the office in the first place?” I questioned. “Before you can have a spirit, somebody must die right? So how will anybody die here?”
“Hey, you never know!” Nicky disagreed. “Maybe somebody did die working here? Like having a heart attack while flipping through a financial report?”
“Or died working too much overtime,” Dawn added.

“Why don’t we get an army badge from the army store at Beach Road?” Choi joined in the conversation.
“An army badge? What for?” asked Dawn.
“Because spirits are scared of it,” Choi explained solemnly. “When I was serving my National Service at Pulau Tekong, my platoon stayed at one of those seven-storey barracks. When we looked out of our room’s windows, there was this unused blank space. Then in the middle of one night, my whole platoon was woken up by the sound of people marching. Initially everybody thought that some unlucky platoon had been punished to march around the block. But when they looked out of the windows, they saw the apparitions of Japanese soldiers marching around that unused blank space and one that looked like the commander even shouted some commands in Japanese!”

At that point, Sally, Ju and Dawn screamed. Ju and Sally clasped each other again.

“But what has that got to do with the army badge?” I asked.
“Oh, before I went to Pulau Tekong for my training, my older friends told me to sleep with my beret beside my pillow, which was why I didn’t wake up to see those Japanese soldiers.”
“Are you sure it’s not because you’re too deeply asleep?”

Choi folded his arms and stared at me.

“Beng, Choi might be right,” Ju sided Choi. “My hubby used to be in the Navy and he swears that the badge worked as well.”
“Your husband’s platoon saw some Japanese divers swimming onto the shore?” Dawn asked.
“No, they didn’t! But something else happened. At that time when they were staying in, three to four of them shared one room…”
“Wow, that’s luxurious! We have more than twelve of us sharing!” Choi protested.
“Erm… Choi, my hubby was an officer.”
“Oh…”
“Anyway, my hubby slept with his officer cap beside his pillow as well and thanks to it, he’s still alive.”

Ju took a deep breath before continuing.

“Together with two other guys, they had their beds against three walls in the room and the remaining wall was the exit to the balcony…”
“What? They even had a balcony?!!” Choi protested again.
Ju ignored Choi and continued: “So one night they were sleeping as usual when suddenly my hubby was waken up by somebody shaking his arm. When he opened his blurry eyes, he saw one of his roommates shaking him with one hand, and another hand holding something that looked like a rope. He was telling my hubby to ‘pass the rope’. Immediately, my hubby closed his eyes, turned away from his roommate and started to say prayers. After some time, he could feel his roommate’s hand moving away from his and he didn’t hear his voice anymore. The next morning, my hubby asked this roommate if he remembered the previous night’s incident, and he said that the only thing he remembered was the other roommate waking him up and asking him to pass a rope.”

“So what’s the thing about this rope that they’re trying to pass?” I was confused.
“My hubby said that one guy actually hung himself to death from the ceiling fan in the middle of that room during training. And tales went around that people sleeping in that room will wake up in the middle of the night to ask his roommate sleeping in the next bed to pass a rope. Once all the guys had passed the rope and the rope made one round in the room, one of them will die. That was how one guy died in that room a few years before my hubby’s platoon stayed there.”

Geez, that was one close shave.

“Okay, then let’s go get some army badges during lunch time!” said the exhilarated Sally.
“Hang on, the army badge might have worked because they were in a military camp,” Nicky analyzed. “But this is an office.”
“Then what shall we use?” asked the distraught Sally.

Everybody tried to think of something that could scare office spirits. Suggestions poured in like making a pile of unfinished documents, the CEO’s name card, and even a calendar marked full of meetings. Then I thought of something that might really work.

“How about a letter that says ‘we regret to inform you that you have been made redundant’?”