The Observer- Episode 1

Finding courage

It was a cozy night back in 2001. The doors were tightly locked as what was left in the house were nothing but the 'three stooges' (that being me and my two cousins). Everybody else in the family have made a trip to the hospital to visit my father, who was suffering from what was an unusually heavy fever. It's a bit strange for me, because my father has never, as far as my consciousness would go, laid on a bed at the excuse of being sick before, so that the fever had pinned down the toughest of man is something worthy of notice.

And as we always do, we searched for options as to what we should do to fill our time. All we needed was a ball (a rubber ball as big as you could easily cuddle it in your hands) and the small opening located below my study table, located at the far end of the hall at the isolated Kg.Acheh house. We didn't have neighbors, the next house was an abandoned one, and about two lots away lies a Chinese family, of whom we hardly see a sight during the day. So we played football, banging that small ball on the balls, shouting, hovering and sweating ourselves, aping after the Zidanes amd Figos and Beckhams. We had no other intention but to watch footy on TV at that time (those were times when watching footy is highly prohibited in the family because it would distract our studies. Getting caught watching footy is equal to getting caught bunking school and going to theater to watch movie or going to SpaceNet and playing computer games). So we came to know that Ronaldo (the original Brazillian samba man) is making his return from injury to play for Inter Milan against Brescia that night. So we watched the game.

And Ronaldo scored. And as usual again, I just can't sit, a habit I carry till today while nervously watching my favorite team play- I just can't sit and watch it relaxingly. I remember Roberto di Baggio playing for Brescia at that time. And the inevitable Igli 'Idli' Tare, as we would call him, wih his blonde hair and funny name.

And then it happened, I had the habit of looking to the silent, dark environment outside the house and well, just watching. For a moment, I was starring outside, and I did not see a dark, blank environment (there's only oil palm plantation in front and beside my house). I saw a man (which I assumed was Chinese), walking past my father's van parked outside. I starred, trying to figure of I'm hallucinating. Then I saw it. He moved. The man moved, and dissapeared.

"Somebody's out there," I murmured horrifyingly to my elder cousin, Vengtesh. "Who?" he and Sri asked back. "I saw a man, like a Chinese man, he moved," I explained. Thud, we heard a sound at the right side of the house. We panicked. "I think somebody's really out there," one of them said. "They are trying to get inside," I said. "Maybe they do not know we are here," Sri said. Yes, maybe they do not know the 'three stooges' are inside. So we geared up. There's stuff to do now.

Off we went to the kitchen, while ssshh-ing each other. We decided that whoever it is outside there, he musn't know that we realize their presence. Came out a hammer which I took from the kitchen cupboard. "This is best, I'm going to use this, you guys find stuff as well," I said and moved to the hall. Carefully, I placed the hammer on the table in the hall. We knew we needed a knife, but they weren't really sharp knifes in kitchen. Sri took a pretty normal cutting knife, and I and Vengtesh walked up to him and saw around the kitchen. "Take that," Vengtesh pointed out. I nodded. It was a butcher's knife. So I put that at the hall. Then to round it off, we found a rope. There, we were done. "I hit him with the hammer, you cut him with the butcher's knife, and we tie him up," we decided. That was the plan. We knew what to do next. Make our presence felt. We maximixed the volume of the footy game. And we started shouting and cheering as if the goals are flowing. It was all the more embarassing because, in truth, the game was slow-paced and chances were few and far between, but obviously the man outside wouldn't know the live update of what happening on a pitch in Italy while trying to break into a house in Kg. Acheh, Perak, Malaysia.

We continued shouting till we were exhausted. There were still sounds outside the house, some 30 minutes later, and we had to know whats going on.Vengtesh moved towards the kitchen door and we opened it up. Nobody. Then I pulled myself together and walked up to the front door. With the hammer in my hands, I unlocked the door and walked outside. Nobody. The sound was coming from the right-side of the house. I just walked, and took a peep. It was a cat. A cat starring right into my eyes in a glaring, spooky night at an oil palm plantation. I shush-ed it away, but it starred at me as if it doesn't fear me. After a while, it took the walk.

I went back inside the house and we had a laugh about it. Maybe it was just a cat all along. Maybe I was hallucinating. Then the relatives came back and we narrated the story to them. Some put up worried faces because they know its not a safe place, some found the funny side of it. The next day, we explored further around the house, and saw it, there and then, that the fencing at the rear of our lot has been cut through big enough to fit a person. I looked at my cousins. I might not have been hallucinating afterall. But nothing happened after that, so the matter was put to dust, done and simple.

A couple of weeks later, a scorpion entered our house and decided to bite my cousin sister who was sleeping at the wee hours of 3am in the morning. There were huge noises in the house, my father (who's back) killed the damn thing with some nasty broom hits. Back to bed was the signal.

That morning, we realized our house have been burgralized. Through the fence they came, they dispatched the window steels, helped themselves in, and opened the door, and conveniently took away out belongings which are worth a few thousand, including my wallet, my IC, my everything that proves my citizenship. Then I saw the TV turned a bit, way from its original position. And I realized, they have been wanting to take away our TV and Astro system as well, but couldn't do so because of the heavy wires which complicates the whole thing.

But they did take a souvenir from there- the remote control. Mockers. True mockers. Whether they are fools or geniuses is anybodys guess. I walked out and entered the oil palm plantation. I followed a small trail. I found both my IC and guess what- the remote control. I walked further and I found a Chinese man at the back of another house. Apparently, the house was his own house and they have broken into his house as well.

But at the end of the day, for all the fear and horror I went through, I discovered something I didn't think I really had that time- courage. I had the courage to walk up and face the nemesis, whether it was with a hammer or with just a meagre intention of finding a remote control, only that the nemesis was not in front of me.

Ram Anand.

2001.