It was a dark and stormy night...

... I was alone in the apartment.

My housemates were out and I just got back from my Banana leaf rice session with my gay and gal pal.

It was literally a dark and stormy night. When we were at Bangsar, it wasn't quite dark but it was stormy. My gal pal got knocked on the head with an empty cutleries basket. It just flung out of nowhere.

And I was trying to withstand the howling wind in my tube dress. Not surprisingly, I was shivering, cursing to myself.

Yeah... of ALL days, why must I choose to be in a tube dress TONIGHT???

It was only dark when I arrived at home.

My apartment's doors has this tendency to open on their own. It has something to do with the loose knobs (I hope).

And they creak.

I am quite used to it but when you are alone in a three room somewhat spacious apartment, your imagination gets the better of yourself.

I consider myself quite gutsy. Sometimes stupidly gutsy.

When I was still a team lead, when my division's office was still based on ground floor (Well we called it the dungeon because it has no windows, which made it kind of looked like a basement.) I had to come alone to the office one Sunday as I was a part of a systems test they are conducting.

I was alone. The cubicles were the color of Laker's yellow and purple (Don't ask) and it was about 6 foot high. There was this small room that we fondly refer to as the printer room right next to my boss's room at that time. It was accessible by my team and the other division operating on the same floor.

I heard someone calling my name. It sounded so close. Like it was standing behind me.

I was not thinking of anything, I stood up, looked around and walked to the door and also peered to the printer room.

And then I realized that I was not supposed to do that.

Old people say, that if you get those kinds of things happening to you, people calling your name despite you knowing that you were in fact alone, you don't go and look for it, you don't speak of it, you just don't react to it.

I did the opposite.

So I went back to my cubicle, sat down and murmured under my breath :

"Dahlah tu... jangan la kacau. Aku keje bukan main." (Enough already, don't disturb me, I am working and not playing around."

At the same time was actually reciting verses from the Quran. Verses that my Grandpa told us to recite when we feel something is just not right.

So that night, in the apartment, alone, I heard the door squeaked gently outside. I convinced myself that it was the house, it was the fact that we can hear doors squeaking downstairs in the neighbours apartment as we live in a town house with only 4 units in one floor.

The storm was still raging outside. Thunder and wind.

Nothing happened. Of course when you keep on thinking and telling yourself to not think about it, it would probably not happen.

It's like that saying, if you want it bad enough, you might just get it.

This is hardly something I would want. So it didn't happen.

Lucky for me.