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Marshall Cavendish International - Catherine Lim

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69 pages

English

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Catherine Lim's free-wheeling imagination cheerfully dispenses with all constraints to tell stories of that other world. Written with an exaggerated sense of earnestness and caution, the eighteen tales in this collection elicit in the reader the very goosebumps of terror she had herself experienced as a child listening to such tales. As an adult, these goosebumps persist for her. However, they no longer arise from fear, but from a sense of awe and mystery that she feels when she considers this large existential question: Despite our extensive scientific knowledge today, what do we know of the supernatural? What can we know of the supernatural? Catherine's deep and abiding sense of mystery is reflected in the pronouncement by one of her characters in the last story in this collection: "I don't know, I don't know. I wish I did."

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Short story

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Publié par	Marshall Cavendish International
Date de parution	26 juillet 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9789814868662
Langue	English

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CATHERINE LIM
The Loving and The Dead
Tales of the supernatural
2019 Catherine Lim
Cover design by Benson Tan
Cover photo by Joakim Honkasalo on Unsplash
Published by Marshall Cavendish Editions
An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International

All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Requests for permission should be addressed to the Publisher, Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited, 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196. Tel: (65) 6213 9300 E-mail: genref@sg.marshallcavendish.com
Website: www.marshallcavendish.com/genref
The publisher makes no representation or warranties with respect to the contents of this book, and specifically disclaims any implied warranties or merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose, and shall in no event be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
Other Marshall Cavendish Offices: Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 99 White Plains Road, Tarrytown NY 10591-9001, USA Marshall Cavendish International (Thailand) Co Ltd, 253 Asoke, 12th Flr, Sukhumvit 21 Road, Klongtoey Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand Marshall Cavendish (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Times Subang, Lot 46, Subang Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Batu Tiga, 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.
Marshall Cavendish is a registered trademark of Times Publishing Limited
National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Name: Lim, Catherine.
Title: The loving and the dead : tales of the supernatural / Catherine Lim.
Description: Singapore : Marshall Cavendish, 2019
Identifier(s): OCN 1102658079 | eISBN 978 981 4868 66 2
Subject(s): LCSH: Ghost stories, Singaporean. | Paranormal fiction. | Short stories, Singaporean.
Classification: DDC S823--dc23
Printed in Singapore
CONTENTS
A Note From The Author
Marriage
The Old Man At The Top Of The Stairs
Ah Chow s Bed
Where Have I Seen That Face Before?
Kong Kong s Teeth
Voices
The Letters
No 32, Greenglenn Crescent
Amat s Story
Proof
Purgatory
The Village Idiot
The Favourite Son
The Journalist
Doppelganger
The Footprints Of Love
The Return
Non-Believer
About The Author
A Note From The Author
For someone who doesn t believe in ghosts, I m absurdly fascinated by them. For someone who proudly claims the modern scientific-rational-logical mode of thinking, I m ridiculously drawn to the entire domain of supernatural beings.
And what an impressive pantheon they are! Ghosts powerful and lowly, ancient and modern, hostile and benign, contented and desolate, like the lonely ones released once a year during the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts to enable them to come to earth and enjoy the good food spread out for them by the thoughtful living. Probably hungry for more than just food, the ghosts have to leave by cockcrow, and wait for the next Festival to come round once again.
As a child, I absorbed the ghost stories told by an elderly maidservant who was a compulsive storyteller. The myths she remembered vividly from her childhood were much embellished by her very active imagination, so that a simple legend could end up as a horror tale of epic proportions. In the evenings, after her work was over, she would bring out a wooden stool and sit in the cool night air, as we began gathering round her, a completely enraptured audience. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, giggling as we compared the goose pimples appearing on our arms, we would huddle closer together. Too frightened to walk alone in the darkness, we would insist on going to the outhouse lavatory in a group.
I had thought the maturity and sobriety of adulthood would have left behind those horrid supernatural tales of childhood. But I was wrong. They remain as compelling as ever, making me generate ghost stories of my own, each more impossibly outrageous than the other. In the stories here, I have taken bold advantage of the literary licence that allows the creative writer to have full play of the imagination. That means, of course, that my tales of ghosts, hauntings and visitations are not at all based on factual reality, but are simply a product of a freewheeling imagination.
Marriage
The marriage date had to be quickly decided on, as well as the entire matter of how the ceremony should be conducted, where it should take place, which temple priest would be most experienced to conduct all the necessary rituals, who should be present as witnesses, etc. It would have been an onerous enough task for the families on both sides to plan the wedding if the couple were still alive. But Ah Choo, aged eighteen, and Ah Bah, aged twenty-two, had died just a month back, in that awful trishaw accident along the little town s main road, trapped together inside the flimsy vehicle that had been crushed into a heap by a huge lorry carrying massive logs of wood. As soon as word got round about the accident, the townspeople rushed to see. Some were insensitive enough to make opportunistic use of the tragedy, trying to work out winning lottery numbers based on the date of its occurrence, the ages of the deceased, the number on the licence plate of the lorry. But everyone talked about the shocking event with grave faces for days afterwards, shaking their heads and exclaiming sombrely, What a pity! Already engaged and soon to get married!
The marriage would take place after all. It would be a ghost marriage, with all the appearance and appurtenances of a living one, to calm the spirits of the dead couple. Already both Ah Choo and Ah Bah had appeared several times to their families in dreams, with increasing urgency and distress. Ah Choo s mother reported how in one of the dreams, her daughter, wearing the same samfoo as on the day of the accident, had stood before her with tears in her eyes, wringing her hands, shaking her head, and rocking to and fro in a display of extreme anguish and despair. She had opened her mouth as if to ask something. Please tell me what you want , her mother had pleaded in the dream, but never knew, because she had woken up then. It would continue to be like that - her waking up at the precise moment her dead daughter opened her mouth to speak.
Ah Bah s mother too had had a dream of her son, which she was sure was an apparition. She saw him approach her as she lay on the bed, kneel on the floor, take her hand in his and begin to sob silently, as from an overcharged heart. She had burst out crying, Please tell me what you want, I ll do anything you wish , and watched him open his mouth to say something. And, as in the case of Ah Choo and her mother, it was at this exact moment that she had woken up. It would appear that the two parents were having strangely parallel dreams, of dead offspring desperate to ask for something but unable to do so.
Thrown into confusion and tumult, they got together to share their dreams and consult with each other as to what to do next. There was something both noticed. In every dream, Ah Choo and Ah Bah had appeared singly, never together as a couple. Whereas in life they were inseparable as a betrothed pair, taking every excuse to ride together in a trishaw as the narrow seat allowed for the secret delight of close bodily contact, in death each was always a solitary, bewildered presence. Suddenly the message became clear: a betrothal, no matter how serious in this world, was not enough for true union in the next. It had to be ratified by marriage for total intimacy and companionship. Until the marriage took place, each would remain lost, seeking the other, wandering about in torment and despair.
So there was no choice but to arrange a ghost marriage. A temple medium confirmed its necessity. Without it, he warned, the souls of Ah Choo and Ah Bah would be condemned to cycle after cycle of painful solitude that would end with active vengeance against those who had never cared enough to help them.
So they had to be helped at once. But the trouble was that neither family knew how to go about preparing for a ghost marriage. Someone provided the useful information that a priest from the Ban Tok Kee Temple had had the experience of conducting a ghost marriage on two separate occasions. Apparently he had done his job well, for the spirits of the dead were satisfied enough with their new marital status to stop bothering the living. With much relief, Ah Choo s and Ah Bah s mothers sought out the priest to get his help to appease their children s spirits.
Their part in the ceremony of appeasement was simply to bring along an item of clothing of the deceased and to share the expenses for the large wedding feast of roast pig, steamed chicken, pink buns, fried noodles, oranges, an assortment of sweetmeats and a pot of the best rice wine, laid out on a table covered with a red tablecloth, exactly as would be set out at a celebratory event for the living.
The priest had made two large effigies to represent the deceased. They were roughly constructed of bamboo, paper and cloth, the male effigy being made to look larger and taller than the female. (The priest s assistant had crudely drawn in two round breasts for the female, and a huge manly moustache for the male.) The items of clothing brought by the mothers were carefully inspected, then draped over the effigies; Ah Choo s mother had brought along her daughter s favourite pearl necklace for thoughtful enhancement.
Next the two women were invited by the priest to simulate the obligatory Bridal Feeding Ceremony by which bride and groom simultaneously fed each other to symbolise lasting support and care. Ah Choo s mother fed Ah Bah s effigy a small piece of steamed chicken on a fork, while Ah Bah s mother fed Ah Choo s effigy a small mouthful of noodles on a