Thursday, August 07, 2008

Bad Apartment Mojo

I guess it's a well known 'urban legend' that my apartment in Makati, Manila, is a bit on the haunted side of things. There were many tiny spooky details such as seeing shadows from the corners of my eyes, radio turning on by itself at certain hours, friends (who claimed to be able to see the unseen) saying that there was a lady in red standing just near where my work desk is in the apartment. I guess the killer tale would be that there was a time when my room mate was away and our driver was sleeping on his bed when he was suddenly awaken by a violent shaking in the middle of the night.

The bed was moving left and right.
By itself.

There was another tiny spooky detail that me and my room mate experienced just recently. Yesterday night, after we had dinner, me and my roomie went back to the apartment. We had a little chat in the living room and he said that he's been waking up around the same time, which was 3:30 AM, for 2 nights in a row. Before he woke up, he experienced what many Indonesians would call 'ketindihan'. It's like you're awake and fully aware, but you can't open your eyes, you can't move your hands, your feet, your whole body. It's as if something has taken over it. After struggling, you would finally be awake but your heart would be beating real hard. Told him that maybe 'something' was trying to make fun of him.

Last night, I slept in the same room with him. However, even though I did not experience 'ketindihan', I did wake up at 3:30 AM.
Sharp.
The room was bone-chilling cold, and the hair in the back of my neck stood up. I felt something standing next to my side of the bed (but I couldn't, or maybe didn't, want to 'see' it). Afraid that I might eventually see it, I covered my face inside my blanket and tried to sleep again. Not easy, since I felt the onset of 'ketindihan' soon after that, but finally managed to fall asleep again.

Ya know, maybe this has some logical, scientifical explanation. That maybe my roomie has been very tired these past couple of days and that 'ketindihan' was just a side effect of being really tired. But we both knew that he hadn't been coming home late from work these days, and that he hadn't been that tired compared to a couple of weeks before. As for my waking up at 3:30 sharp, that could be explained by the fact that maybe I was sort of anticipating it to happen after hearing my roomie's story. Kind of an interesting coincidence that I managed to wake up at 3:30 sharp if that was the case. Then again, waking up at 3:30 sharp happened to me a lot, even when I was still in Jakarta. Internal body clock, perhaps? But why 3:30?

Well, logical or not, it made for some interesting story.