Confession by Roy Ng When I got married, my mom bestowed upon me a vintage handcrafted dish cabinet that she had inherited from her mom when she got married. It was very well made and extremely heavy; ihe type that requires four movers to lift. It’s slightly taller and broader than a fridge. Both doors are netted, and the cabinet stood on four ornate legs carved to look like dragon’s feet. The top has some ornate designs like flowers or phoenixes or some winged creature. I have seen this cabinet and lived with it all my life, but never really took much notice of it.
The cabinet came along with sets of pretty dishes and cutleries, the kind of designs you would find in the Peranakan Museum. By my estimation, these were much more modern compared to the cabinet. The wife however didn’t like the cabinet all that much. She felt it was more of a burden than a gift. The cabinet didn’t go with the design and look that she had intended for the new house. And due to its sheer size, it’s going to take up valuable real estate in the tiny HDB flat. It can’t fit in the kitchen, so in the dining area it would have to go, but if you are familiar with HDB flats, the dining room has enough size for only one dining table and six chairs. So the next best thing is to put it in the living room. Dish cabinet in the living room? You can see why the wife is upset. When I tried to decline, my mom said it wasn’t a choice. Granny had given her strict instructions for the cabinet to be passed to me when I, the only son in the family, was married and mom intended to keep that promise. Granny believed this was a magical cabinet that was going to ensure a smooth life for the owner; that there is always going to be food on the table. Granny had inherited it from her mother-in-law who told her the same thing. We are not sure how many generations this cabinet has passed hands, but by the structure of its build, I think plastic bags may degrade faster than this chunk of wood. I understand granny’s good intentions but it’s really just… not that practical in this time and age, lah. Besides, granny had already passed on more than a decade ago, so she probably wouldn’t mind if the cabinet stays where it was at my mom’s place. Saying that out loud got me an earful from my mom: “yau siew budak! Ungrateful ah!” Mom believed in the magic of the cabinet too, citing that we never had any financial issues and that we were blessed to always be able to put food on the table. Up to this point in my life; I hadn’t believed in the supernatural and superstitious beliefs were just stories from the past because people were less educated. People say cannot enter hotel room without knocking on the room door first, cannot pee on trees at night, or cannot step on burnt joss offerings during Seventh month Hungry Ghost Festival. I did all that also like that To me, the threat from my wife throwing me and the cabinet out was more real than the magic cabinet. To make life easy for me, I’m going to agree with both ladies. I will accept the gift from mom, keep the plates, and then give or sell the cabinet away to someone else who would appreciate it better. Everybody wins. But that’s the start of all the problems…. for the new owner of the cabinet. I gave the cabinet away for free. The only caveat is that the new owner needs to settle the movers and transport over. I stated in the description the dimension of the cabinet and its probable weight - 3 tonnes. It was snapped up within the week and I was happy to have solved the problem. About slightly less than a month later, the new owner called me again and said I needed to take it back. It sounded urgent. I told him that he could give it away, because I don’t want it. Then he replied that I must take it back, and without any further word, he , nothing happened. said he was going to arrange for it to be sent back to me and hung up. But here’s the thing. He doesn’t know my new address, so where the cabinet was going to end up would be at my parent’s place. That was going to create more problems for me. Not ⅝&5 to have this conversation on the phone, I texted him for the address on the pretext that I was coming to help see to the removal. The owner lives in a large three story semi-detached house. From the front porch, I can see an eclectic collection of furniture and fittings which gives the house a Bali resort feel. The new owner invited me in and seemed calmer than he was over the phone. “What seems to be the problem,” I asked. “You have the space for it and clearly the cabinet matches the rest of the furniture.” That’s when he told me that his family hasn’t had proper sleep in a month. Every night, there would be a sound of a woman wailing coming from the cabinet. At first they thought it was the maid crying and chose to ignore it, giving her the privacy to grief. They imagined it was probably due to relationship matters. A week later, the family was woken up to the sound of glass breaking. When they came down to check, they also saw the maid running into the kitchen at the same time. The ceramic plates that the new owner had placed inside the cabinet looked as if they were tossed out against the wall. The broken pieces lay scattered all over the place. When the family and the maid sat down to discuss the event, they learned from the maid that the crying sound was not only at night. It happened during the day too, and it certainly did not come from her. The cabinet door would open and close on its own. When the maid was in the kitchen preparing meals for the family, her knife would shift around the place when she wasn’t looking. When asked if the maid was afraid, she said she was but as a staunch Catholic she prayed for courage and protection and that her God would prevail. When the wife of the owner asked the maid, “why didn’t you tell me sooner?” The maid replied, “how to tell you mam? Say got ghost in the cabinet ah? How you believe me?” The next thing the family did - they were free thinkers by the way- was to negotiate with the ghost in the cabinet. “What is it you want to make your life better here, let us know.” After that incident, the following weeks the family started getting vivid dreams. The wife would dream of a woman dressed in an old Javanese outfit asking to go home. She kept saying “Ibu maki”. The wife felt it was an odd statement because she did anything but scold the spirit. If anything at all they welcomed her to their home. The husband dreamt of a woman running around the house, and hiding in various rooms or under the beds. Other shadowy figures were chasing her. Large silhouettes, towering so high they were hunched against the ceiling. There was an overall sense that time was running out. What exactly would happen, they cannot say. The children felt generally fine. The parents shielded them from the actual story and if they had felt anything, they didn’t say. From their collective dreams they decided that the spirit wanted to return to the original owner, fast. I didn’t know what to make of their encounter. I had lived with that cabinet all my life and had encountered nothing like this. At the same time, this story would be unnecessary at all if the new owner had a change of heart and wanted to get rid of it. In any case, I thought to myself that I will just bring it back home first while I find a new buyer. The wife wasn’t happy, of course. The compromise is that the cabinet will be placed outside the house. Which I was agreeable to because it would mean it would be easier for the movers to take it and go when I found a new buyer. In the meantime, the dish cabinet became a shoe cabinet. To date, I have had no dreams. No crying woman. The previous owner too has no more encounters the day the cabinet left their home. So what do you make of this Eugene? Is my cabinet haunted? How do you explain what that family encountered? You are free to take this cupboard for the occult museum you are setting up if I haven’t found any buyers by then. |
AuthorConfession Journal is a collection of stories and reviews submitted by the public. Topics
All
|