I hate it how Blogger doesn’t allow users to privatize an individual blog entry. Anyway, as promised, I’m here to update my blog regarding something. I understand that not everyone like to hear such things, so don't read it if you don't like it, or stop reading it if you feel uncomfortable. Okay, keeping my fingers crossed, here you go.

Okay, let me start by saying a mini prayer.

Dear Lord, please bless Grace Ang’s soul and look after her family during this difficult time. Rest in peace, Grace.

Okay, if anyone has read the Chinese papers recently, they would have notice a very disturbing article stating that a Singaporean girl died from influenza A (H1N1). Chinese papers always do the groundless thing, like publishing reports without evidences and justifications. The poor girl died from a viral infection, and not H1N1 like what the Chinese papers claim. Anyone with a sensible mind would know it’s not true, WHO knows who died from H1N1 okay!

Anyway, that’s not the main point of my entry. What I want to share here is the very coincident incidents that had occurred, all which only adds up to affirm a rumour, a very freaky one.

Every school has its own ghost stories to share, Katong Convent with no less exception. Well, it seems that every school will have a dark and cold stairwell, a dilapidated attic, a rusty gate that just remains there, an old well lined with roots, a deep pond of murky water so filthy that you see no reflection, a basement level where old souls loiter at and toilets occupied with not-so-there beings. Imagine all these spooky things all in a single school, now that’s really ghastly.

All those were sites of C.H.I.J Katong Convent Primary school before it got refurbished in 2006, and I spent six years in there. I didn’t experience anything extra-ordinary when I was there, but there were stories of the supernatural not to be challenged.

It doesn’t end there. It seems that the people who are spreading these stories continue to spread them even after they graduate from primary and carried on with secondary school. Katong Convent Secondary, location just two junctions away from the primary school, is rich with these supernatural telltales too.

The red and black windows are prominent features of Convent schools, the same things that make them spooky too. This time, there are stories about the haunted spiral stairs, the haunted art rooms, the haunted toilets, the haunted science laboratory, the haunted exercise corner, the haunted everything. So much so that we students think nothing of it, girls lived lives normally, chatted about girly stuff, gossips, poked fun of teachers, and zoomed off to Parkway after school. Haunted rumours didn’t really bothered us, not until…

Nothing could really give me bumps except this really freaky story that my friends and I heard when we were in Sec 3 when a freaky incident happened.

One fine day during Chinese lesson, a fellow classmate broke up in tears. Lao shi went to her and asked her what happened, they got of out the classroom for very long. The rest of the class was in a state of confusion. Words started passing around, students buzzing everywhere, some if us got worried, the rest simply curious about what happened. Not long later, Lao Shi came back, and said that class was over. No it wasn’t, there was still more than half-an-hour of lesson left. On that note, Lao shi left the class, with her head faced down, solemn and silent. Everyone else were puzzled, we looked at each other quietly, as though trying to figure out what was going on but not wanting to think too much about it. At the back of our minds, we knew something grave happened, what exactly, we don’t know.

The class was in ultimate silence for a few minutes before the non-Chinese classmates returned to class from their mother tongue lesson. When they entered, noise escalated. The girls came back crying, distraught, with tears covering their faces.

“X died”, someone whimpered.

“What”s and “Huh”s filled the classroom, and almost everyone broke down immediately without probing further. X was our classmate. The commotion was so great that even students from other classes came to see what happened. No one knew what really happened, but was just crying madly. If you were to ask if we cried of sadness, I would say no, we cried out of shock and the immense emotional buildup from the moment Lao shi stepped out of class. We released all we could, and remained in a state of blank. How could this happen? It was too sudden. It seems that, our fellow classmate smsed X during lesson time and got a reply like, “X got into an accident yesterday and has passed away”. She left the classroom with Lao shi and went to look for another classmate in the Malay classroom to inform her about it.

I was just in a state of disbelief. I wasn’t very close to X, and could still keep my senses. Other classmates were in states of hysteria, crying and hugging and literally screaming at nothing in class. A classmate then came to my partner and I and told us that she once heard a very scary rumour in school, that there is this ‘clock’ in school that runs in a repetitive order, and will rewind itself after every four years. In the period of the four years, a student’s name will appear in the clock, and that student will die. It doesn’t have to be a four-years period before the next victim goes, but just that in every four years, one student will go.

I told my friend to shut up and covered my own eyes, refusing to listen to what she is saying. “It’s not true! It’s just a bloody hoax lar”, I said, but something drifted up back in my mind. I released my palms from my ears and said, “How can this be so coincident?” My friend and partner looked at me with an unanswered face, and asked me to continue and say what I know. I told them I remember very fondly that a student from the school indeed passed away a couple of years ago after being knocked down by a public bus just outside the school. My friend remembered that incident too and told me that the girl was a friend of her sister. We were only Primary Six then, so we don’t really know what happened. After counting, we found out that the fatal accident happened three and a half years ago, fitting perfectly into the cursed timeline of the ‘clock’. “X was the next one”, said my friend, “she took it for us”. I felt a chill down my spine and Goosebumps raided my entire body. Everyone just stayed in the classroom, stuck on their seats, refusing to believe the whole melodrama played in front of our eyes.

Time passes fast when everyone is in daze. We got snapped out of thoughts when the school’s discipline mistress stepped into the classroom, addressing us on what happened. “Okay girls, do not panic. I heard what happened to your classmate, X, and understand that you all are very shocked by the news. However, this is not a confirmed piece of news and might be just a hoax. The office is already checking it, and is trying to contact X’s family.” The usually stern and cold discipline mistress seemed like a ray of light to us at that moment, giving us all a sign of hope and picking us up to stay strong, although she still looked very stern and cold at that time. She left the classroom and left all of us to daze and sob again.

The next moment we knew, another teacher walked into the classroom. She told us that news about X’s death is likely to be a hoax as the school would usually be informed about any student’s mishaps, if they were to happen. She even told us to keep this mum to ourselves so as not to cause greater commotion in campus. She then told us something disheartening but true, that Lao shi is in deep shit for allowing a student to sms in class.

“What the hell?!” was on everyone’s lips. Lao shi tried to help and instead got herself into a mess? What kind of logic is that? Does rules and regulation surpass even humility? Where’s morality? Anger filled us all.

Around half-an-hour later, the discipline mistress came back to the classroom and said, “Girls, the news about X’s death is a hoax, it’s confirmed, X is well and alive. I don’t know why she want to come up with this kind of prank, but she will get it from us when she comes back tomorrow.” Then, as expected, “What the hell?!”s filled the classroom. Students who were in hysteria previously cried again out of anger. Others were rolling their eyes and cursing X for doing such a silly thing and played a joke about her own life.

Nothing can be as memorable in my secondary school life than seeing the blackboard of my classroom decorated with words that read “Welcome back from the coffin!” and drawings of coffins, crosses, R.I.Ps and Dracula’s fingers. X’s face filled with embarrassment and shame when she entered the classroom and saw what was on the blackboard. Cynical and sarcastic classmates openly jeered and shouted, “I thought you died?”

Days passed and everyone put that incident aside, girls’ lives are always filled with vibrancy and happenings, new things happen and we’ll forget the old. The year passed normally and we proceeded to the next chapter of our lives.

2006, we were in Secondary 4, the year to take ‘O’ Levels. I forgotten which part of the year it was, but one morning, there was a broadcast through the school’s PA system. “Good morning all staffs and students…” the voice belonged to a very ‘Holy’ and motherly teacher in school, “I have a piece of sad news here to bring, we have lost Ms. D yesterday… She will be fondly remembered by all us here… God bless…” My form teacher started crying and told us how Ms. D died. The class became dead silent, we could hear our form teacher’s voice crack in tears. Another few months later, we lost another teacher, Cikgu R. Cigku R. was an old staff of the school, and she used to teach my mother P.E! Actually, Cikgu R’s passing was quite expected, teachers were telling us how her health is deteriorating and that she has difficulties remembering people. Cikgu will get irritated and frustrated with herself for not being able to recognize students who went to visit her in the hospital. She was already bed-ridden. I remember that she would always scold students for not doing canteen duty and cleaning the canteen tables after recess. That will be history forever. In that year alone, we lost two teaching staff. I then had a silly thought, could it be that these two teachers sacrificed themselves for the students and became victims of the ‘clock’ curse? Or probably it is just coincidence, life’s like that, unpredictable.

These have been placed behind my mind ever since I graduated from Secondary school.
Earlier this week, my sister told me a girl from her school died from H1N1, her classmate told her that. “Are you serious?” was my natural reaction, as though skeptical to everything now. “Don’t know, my friend say one” was my sister’s reply to me “Her mum read it from the Chinese newspaper”. I tried to scoop for more news from her, but she became frustrated and I stopped probing. That night, I saw a friend’s status update on Facebook, it reads “RIP Grace. 1 February 1995 – 4 July 2009”. Could it be the girl that my sister was talking about? My friend’s next status update: “Chinese Newspaper about Grace Ang’s death is bullshit. That girl didn’t die from H1N1. RIP Grace. 1 February 1995 – 4 July 2009.” Okay, confirmed it’s the same girl we’re talking about. The next day I messaged my friend, asking her what happened to the girl who passed away. My friend told me that the girl suffered from a viral infection, not H1N1. What more heart wrenching was that she passed on after two days of showing symptoms. She was only 14, too young to go. Indeed a sudden death, so sudden that even her family members find it hard to accept. I know the girl’s sister; she was my junior in secondary school. It’s a sad sad situation.

Then, the most bizarre thing happened, some long-forgotten memory floated up in my mind again. The curse. Think about it. I’ll leave it to coincidence, like how we do to the previous cases.

God bless Grace, and her family.