A Malaysian Ghost Story #2
Susan AbrahamKuala LumpurMalaysiaJune 3, 2006Hi again Alan,Thank you so much for using my story on your site. It's beautifully laid-out. Here's another piece titled 'The 3 Opened Windows' enclosed further down. I have had the ability to see spirits/things & situations from another dimension, that very few others can, since I was little and to me it's something normal...I take it in my stride. From my experiences here, the spiritual and physical dimensions are completely separate from each other. In Asia, the spirits are quite violent, often female, sometimes destructive and sexual - you have to know how to evade them - some are curious and stay pleasant. They could just be passing by through to somewhere else. I would like to send you a piece where perhaps I describe these situations in greater length. Many roam about and almost all are ancient. Anyway, here's another true-account ghost story for the moment. Title: The 3 Opened Windows.by Susan AbrahamI am someone who must never sleep near an opened window.A few years ago in Kuala Lumpur, I tasted a ghostly encounter...something familiar and old...something that could never be logically explained and yet could be seen with my inner eyes.I had stayed at a friend's house for the night. I had had a busy day, was drowsy and soon ready for bed.The large creaky window was opened. I stayed quiet, lay in bed and thought of many things. But the night was peaceful and I was tired. I must have dozed off.
Soon, I was awakened from sleep into a direct consciousness, by someone poking rudely at my body. I froze. I did not know the time. Instead, I was frightened to feel the touch of human skin when I knew that I was alone. I was fully-dressed by the way, having been too tired even to change. At first, in the darkness, I saw nothing. My eyes trained on every corner in the room and still, I could see nothing.But I could feel the movement of human skin on my body and someone taking its times to poke me here and there...to grab at my toes violently without warning and to jab me in the corners of my waist.I soon saw an apparition - a vague image of an old bent Asian woman. Someone evil considering the pokes were causing me undue pain. I knew no more. She kept showing me the face of another Asian man...someone I knew. It was an image of someone I liked as a friend but did not love and never would. I could see his face right in front of me. An instant picture in my mind like a sudden Polaroid. Again, I find this almost-illusive moment troubling and wondered if it was a hex sent by someone else.In Malaysia, we call it putting a 'charm' on someone.I found myself unable to move or scream. I lay encircled in a strange orbit of pain in a way that stays difficult to describe and consciously hard to feel.
But everytime I turned my head, I appeared to touch something that was far more painful than anything I remembered. I groaned. All I knew was not to turn my head.
I made the kind of loud sounds that you hear from prisoners in the torture chamber. It was a series of painful groans that I had never made in my life but watched on television when someone was being violently tortured. I was shocked at my own sounds. I thought I saw this woman move around the room and picked up once more the sensation of someone or something evil. She would move around though not like the way the rest of us moved.
The scene was shadowy and hazy. Then she would come back to grab at my toes and her touch was so painful. At the time, I was too frightened to care. For some reason, I knew distinctly that she had come in through the window.
In the end, I called the name of Christ. The word stumbled out with a twisted moan. Still, it sounded loud and recognisable to myself.
Instantly, the woman and pain vanished and I was able to move again. I put on the light. I was fine. Not a mark or bruise on me. It was 12.30am. I paced around the room for awhile knowing from an old experience that while the room stayed garish with its brightness, the apparition or whatever it was, would not and could not return. I made a coffee, drank it quickly and went back to sleep with all the lamplights on.
I refused to contemplate what it was and what it could have been. I did not want to go down that dark road. All I knew was that a divine power had appreared to rescue me from my terrible predicament and that was enough. I also stayed relieved with a secret knowledge that it was harder for such apparitions to appear in lighted places.
Perhaps I had rescued myself in good time....who knows but thankfully, I was none the worse for wear.
Such a thing had happened to me once before too, in 1990. I stayed with a close friend in the township of Section 9, Shah Alam in Malaysia. It was a beautiful new suburb with many young Malay families setting up home. I had my own room.
Again, the window was opened. I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. I could smell the strong aroma of coffee. I was younger then and more easily frightened than I was now.
I slept to my side and then I heard a woman lying next to me, her head on the pillow close to mine and breathing heavily. I could feel the texture of human breath brush against my skin.
She muttered something in the Malay and laughed. She wouldn't stop laughing. I heard only half-syllables. Remembering that very fear still rattles me today. It was the kind of fear that tends to appear when you suspect something terrible is about to happen to you physically. Then she suddenly vanished. But it seemed like forever. It was as if time stops being dead and the air becomes light again. You start to hear other little sounds like the frogs and the night insects. Shivering, I got up to quickly close the window but stayed afraid all night and could not sleep.
The next day, my friend said, why didn't I come to knock at her door where she, her husband and their baby slept. Not believing my ears, I laughed. I said that at the time when you're too frightened to even turn on your side to see who's lying next to you, the last thing you are able to do is to jump off the bed to call for help. People always think it's easy to flee such a situation but that is nothing short of miraculous. Intense fear enjoys paralysing its vicitm.
I also remember an incident with my friend, Rose, once before. She was a devout Christian - and I was nothing like her. She was also used to the idea of seeing more horrifying things than me.
Once she stayed with a friend in SEA Park, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. The houses in Sea Park are old. Rose was lying on a mattress on the floor while her friend slept on a bed. They were bunking a room together. It was a somewhat messy double-storey house...the kind that hints of a dark history.
Suddenly late into the night, while Rose's friend lay in deep sleep, she was awakened rudely, from the sound of continued knocks on the locked window.
Rose jumped. All my friend could see was a young Chinese woman's face. She had no neck, no body, nothing. Just a face and a hand was visible. The face dangled like a lantern in slow motion.
She looked at Rose and kept pointing to Rose's friend.
Then she kept making gestures that indicated she wanted that friend to come to her and for Rose to open the window. Just repeated slight gestures but enough to give Rose a major electric shock.
Rose kept telling her no; waving her finger from left to right and mouthing the distinct alphabet 'O' to say no. She told me later that she probably did it by instinct, but she was in reality, scared. She also told me that the girl looked pitiful and very sad and kept indicatingthat she wanted the friend and for Rose to open the window. Rose was terrified out of her wits. I don't know how I would have handled that. Perhaps I would have screamed.
Rose started to quote Bible verses. Her friend continued to sleep soundly. The girl at the window kept knocking and calling out to Rose. After a long while, the face and hand suddenly vanished.
I often say, don't open the bedroom window for those of us who can see the things that others cannot, or for those of us who can see the things that we musn't see.
Just never open the bedroom window at night.
end.Thank you, Alan. Sorry, the font has gone awry. I hope you will find this account suitable for posting up on your site.Yours sincerely,Susan Abraham.