[story] willie
author: kuanyi
email: prinnydo0d [at] hotmail.com
When the average person is posed the question as to whether they would like to have the ability to see ghosts, you will probably get one of two reactions: "Yes", or "No." If asked the above question, I would give a definite, solid "Nyeeah". Because I already can.
If most of what you know about ghosts comes from R.L. Stein books, or movies starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore, then I can only lower my head in the shame of your blissful ignorance. Trust me, ghosts aren't nearly as intriguing as the Hollywood fat cats want you to believe.
The oldest ghosts I've seen are like, 800 years old. Imagine spending the weekend with your 80 year old Grandma. Yeah, it's like ten times more boring than that. Apparently, senility doesn't stop once you lose your physical form, your brain along with it.
No, I don't go "Ghost Whisperer" on any of them. I can't be bothered, really. It would take me like, what, a week to help someone fulfill his or her last wish? In that time, think of how many people would have died and become ghosts. It's like trying to imagine Santa delivering presents to children all around the world in a single night.
There was this one exception, though. Just that one ghost- seriously, I never met anyone, living or dead, who was nearly as bizarre and disturbing as Willie.
I was on my way home from school one day many years ago. Even at the tender age of fifteen, I had already learnt that ignoring ghosts was the best prevention against weird. However, that day I encountered a ghost so hideous it was simply impossible to look away.
Before I could stop myself from staring by delivering a sharp punch to my own groin, the ghost looked straight at me. It was not a glare of malice, nor was there even a sliver of loneliness showing on his 50% opacity face. Although he looked like he bit the bullet well after his twentieth birthday, his face (ugly as it was to behold) bore the grin of a seven year-old who just won a trip to Wonka's chocolate sweatshop for Oompa Loompas.
I knew that look. It was the look of hope, like he had found the one person who could save him from having to walk the earth for all time.
As mentioned earlier, I have a very strict policy regarding helping ghosts walk into the light. For a visual illustration, please refer to the logo used by the Ghostbusters. I didn't care if I looked like Wonka with a pimp cane and a purple silk top hat to him, I was neither a snappy dresser, nor did I intend on being his golden ticket.
"Avert thy eyes, o' unholy fiend!", I began to recite. "If thus your fate be to roaming the cursed land of Toa Payoh, let not I, a mere mortal of fourteen winters, be one to paddle your boat against the wind of fate blowing in your sails!"
The ghost kind of just stood there, his smile fading from his already faded face. A definite step up, as it helped hide his teeth so yellow that the strong mustard shade showed even at 50% opacity. After a while, he spoke in an extremely normal voice that contradicted his face that not even a mother could love.
"What the hell is that? You started out like some Catholic priest, sidetracked to Lord of the Rings halfway through, then finished off like a Pirates of the Caribbean movie marathon. I mean, seriously. Sixteen winters? It's freakin' Singapore, it's ALWAYS summer here. You've probably never even experienced ONE winter."
I wanted badly to retort with "This one time, I went on a ski trip to Korea with my parents", but I thought better of it. Having just got royally served by an apparition, I decided to just ignore him, go home, and thank God that no one had just witnessed that moment of severe embarrassment.
As I walked away, I could hear him continuing to rant stuff like "And I'm wearing a pair of jeans and T-shirt, did you really think I was from the 18th Century? Eh, Einstein?" and "The only unholy thing I see is your haircut!" But desperately trying to find higher moral ground, I swiftly departed, hoping that he wouldn't follow me home.
Fortunately, although he obviously had no sense of personal hygiene when he was alive, he at least had the good sense not to follow me home like a weird ghost stalker. Unfortunately, as I had to find out the following day, he had not forgotten our little encounter.
He was leaning against a tree at the exact spot I had met him the previous day, glaring at me like I had just slaughtered his first-born. I decided that the best way to sever all ties with the weirdo was to simply tell him to make like a tree and leave.
"Hey Uggo, quit staring at me. I'm not gonna help you, so why don't you just make like a banana and split?"
"Doesn't it feel good to talk like a real person, and not some super geek?" he replied with a smug smile. "Besides, it was you who started gawking at me first yesterday."
"Yeah, well, uhh, it's just, I've never seen anyone, dead or alive, who had both a unibrow and a lazy eye, all on the same face," I spat back. "Look, just give it up. I couldn't care less about what happens to people who have already gone six feet under. Way I see it, you might even be set for a one way ticket to hell even if you do cross over, so you ought to be grateful that you can gaze out at the Kallang River, instead of the River Styx."
He looked a little taken aback. Just as I thought, it had probably never crossed his mind that he might be hell bound. "So, just, yeah. Leave me alone from now on."
I turned to make a hasty retreat while he was temporarily stunned. Except, as I was to soon find out, nothing could stun Willie for longer than three seconds.
"I don't care!" I heard him shout, as I continued to briskly walk my butt out of there. One thing I learnt about ghosts is, they don't need actual working feet to move. It's one of the reasons I never use the expression "Let's beat feet." In less than a split second, he was already right in front of me.
"I don't care," he whispered, much softer this time. "I want my closure. And I'm gonna stalk you till you agree to help me."
"Do you really think you're the first ghost to threaten me with that? You all go on and say 'you are a mere mortal, and I have forever. I can just hang around you till the day you agree to help me, or the day you die.' But the thing about your kind is, if you were so good at commitments, you wouldn't be trapped in limbo the way you all are now. The longest I've ever had a ghost follow me around was 2 days. Then she got bored with the crocodile tear routine, and just left. You know how people always say 'have some respect for the dead'? I think the problem is that the dead have no respect for the living. Shoo."
I knew I had just done the moral equivalent of rolling a barrel of puppies down a steep slope, but I didn't care. I watched his face, waiting for the look of disappointment I had seen on many ghost's faces over the past few years. However, much to my surprise, he burst into hearty laughter.
"Hate to break it to you, but I'm not like those other spineless wads you've come across. I didn't die and regret anything. Everything I did while I was alive, I can look back at proudly with my pale chest thrown out in pride. The only reason I'm still stuck on this mud ball is simple curiosity."
"You mean... something like, you forgot how you died and you want to find out?"
"Quite the opposite, really," he replied with a smirk. "I want to know... how I LIVED!"
"That's... wow. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
"And your haircut is the stupidest thing I've ever seen, so that makes us even. Look, I could really use your help. It won't take long. Way I estimate, this won't take more than an afternoon of your time. We could get started now, and you could still be home to watch whatever crappy dramas they're showing on Channel 8 tonight."
"T-those have some educational value," I muttered to myself. Despite having never felt the urge to help anything other-worldly before, for the first time in my life, I felt a slight curiosity tabout his curiosity. Also, there was something about his positive attitude - the way he didn't seem to go all My Chemical Romance on me like all the others.
"Fine, whatever. I'll help you out. Don't spread the word, though; this is strictly a one-time thing. I don't want any other spooks showing up asking for help. Doctor Dolittle I am not."
His crooked smile contorted into some crazy shape that made me positive his lips were made out of Play Doh. "Awesome. It's really simple for me; I just want to know how people remember me after I died. I just want you to talk to a couple of people for me, and ask what they thought of me. Then I'll leave you alone."
"Self absorbed, much?" I replied. "Pfft, whatever. Let's just get this over with. Where's the first stop?"
"I was thinking, I want to hear what one of my Primary School classmates thought of me. In a strange twist of fate, he's now a teacher at a school just a stone's throw from here."
"Alright, alright. Lead the way. And don't try any of that spooky stuff on me. I swear, if you try to give me a wet willy on the way there, I'll go Constantine on your ass and exorcise you."
"Funny you should mention that, cos that's my name. Willie Wong, pleasure." he announced proudly.
I wanted to say something about how his parents must have harbored some deep contempt for his birth to give him a name so horrid, but thought it would have been in bad taste.
Apparently, Willie must have had himself a pair of Herculean arms, because his idea of a "stone's throw away" was a good forty five minutes walk. I wondered what kind of person would have been so unfortunate as to have spent his childhood in the same school as Weird Willie.
"St. Hilda's Primary" was the ordinary looking school we found ourselves in front of after the exhausting walk. "That totally counts towards my daily cardio," I breathed heavily. "So who is this friend of yours?"
"Actually, I wouldn't go so far as to call him my friend. He really had it in for me as a kid. He hated my guts and I hated his."
"Why would you care what he thinks, then?" I asked, perturbed. Willie was turning out to be more of a weirdo than even I could have fathomed.
"Because all the people who cared showed up at my funeral, and I already got to hear all the nice things they had to say about me. My Mom even did that thing where she openly grieved and tried to be buried with to me; a dramatic gesture, and one I did enjoy watching. Brought a tear to my eye."
"Just the one good eye, then? May I refer to you as One-eyed Willie, then?" I had agreed to help him, but I didn't agree to being nice about it.
Just as Willie was about to attempt to ghost punch me in the gut, a strict and gruff looking man walked right up to me. I was pretty sure he was a teacher the moment I laid my eyes on him. First off, we were in a school, that was part of the giveaway, but there's something about the aura teachers have about them. Like they hate kids with all their heart and soul.
"Young man," spoke the pot-bellied man in a voice so low, I'm sure the ants scurrying below could hear it before I could, "That haircut of yours is a disgrace to this school, and to the human race. And the laws of physics."
The teacher was obviously senile although he was under thirty, which was quite the feat. I mean, I was obviously neither a primary school student, nor was I wearing the uniform. I had to let that comment about my hair fly, though.
"Sir, I'm just here looking for a teacher... uh-"
"Chong," Willie whispered to me.
"Mr. Chong." I threw in a smile for the heck of it.
"That would be me," he replied. Figures. I guessed that people around Willie's age had never heard of hair product. At least I didn't have to search the whole school looking for him.
"Hi, I'm Willie Wong's nephew, who, as you may already know, passed away pretty recently. I'm writing a short tribute on him, and he mentioned you on many occasions, so I thought it would be nice if you could say a few words about him." I was a pretty good liar. Something I shouldn't have been so proud about.
"Willie snuffed it? No surprise. Anyway, you came barking up the wrong tree, boy. I have absolutely nothing good to say about him. In the six years I had to spend in the same class as him, I can honestly say that he had not the slightest hint of kindness or compassion in his heart."
"See this?" he asked, as he lifted up his shirt, revealing a strange burn mark that looked like a rectangle with six circles inside.
"Little bastard heated up a block of Lego, and used it to brand me. If it's anyone's fault my children have never gotten to on their birthdays or Christmas, it would be his."
I kind of glanced over in Willie's direction, he just kinda gave a shrug and started giggling madly. It was obvious he didn't feel sorry at all. I decided to press for more details.
"I'm, uhh, actually taking a unique journalistic angle for this tribute. Good or bad, I want it all in. So if you could just sum up how you feel about Willie now that he's gone, in, say, three to four sentences, that would be swell."
I'm going to omit the three or four sentences that he proceeded to shout menacingly. It was responsible for filling a few pages in my vulgar vocabulary book. Willie didn't seem to mind, though.
"Hahaha, good Ol' Chong. He's quite the grudge bearer," he said quite spiritedly after we had left the school.
"I really don't get you," I said. "He had nothing but nasty things to say. Are you sure that doing this will help you cross over? I don't want you following me around as long as I live. That'd fill my life with regrets and make me become a ghost when I die. I don't want to be part of the vicious cycle."
"Hahaha, don't worry about it. Knowing that his children will grow up hating him for being a cruel tyrant is good enough for me."
I kind of saw his point, but refused to admit it. Saying it out loud would only make it seem like we had something in common. And at that point in time, Willie was the one being I had no intention of being associated with.
"That's one down, just one place left to go. My ex-girlfriend didn't turn up at my funeral. Don't really blame her, though. Girl had it bad for me. She would've probably had the bawlfest of a lifetime," Willie said, with a slight air of pride.
I didn't want to imagine what kind of woman would fall in love with a weirdo like Willie, so I just politely asked for directions and we got on a direct bus route to his ex-girlfriend's place.
Along the way, Willie seemed to show great interest in my "talent".
"Come on, tell me how you do it. Far as I know, you're the only one I've ever seen who can see and speak with ghosts. Do you have the third eye? Do you come from a long ancestry of ghost excorcists or something?"
I saw no harm in telling him. After all, dead men don't speak. "You know how, when people go blind, or lose one of their five senses, their other four senses get greatly enhanced?" I began in a severe tone.
"I think I saw that on the discovery channel or something, yeah," replied Willie, sounding extremely excited. "Go on!"
"Well, I lost the most important sense of all in order to acquire this power."
"What? What?! Come on, stop stalling, tell me!"
"The sense I lost was... my common sense."
Willie looked kind of serious for a moment, before bursting into ghostly laughter.
"Damn, Kid, you've got quite the sense of humour. No, seriously. How'd you do it?"
"Actually, I am completely serious. This one time when I was seven, I took a bath with a plugged in toaster. I thought it would be awesome to see what boiled bread would have tasted like. For better or for worse, I've been able to see and hear ghosts ever since. Perhaps a part of me died that day, and I'm kind of stuck in between."
Willie smiled. "You sure are lucky. I was driving home from work," Willie began to recall, "And got into an accident. Sandwiched between an eighteen-wheeler and a taxi, but you don't see me turning into a psychic or something."
I kind of stopped talking for awhile. I had at least that much tact.
After a long bus ride, and a short walk, we arrived at his ex-girlfriend's apartment. I began picturing a woman who could rival Willie in terms of hideousness. I could've sworn I threw up a little in my mouth. I knocked on the door of her HDB flat and then waited.
"Coming, coming already!" I heard someone shouting from inside the house. Willie was looking into the reflection off a window, trying to comb his hair, which was entirely futile.
When the front door was flung open, I choked on the bit of vomit I was trying hard to swallow from earlier. Before me stood one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. I'd never seen a woman as pretty as her outside of the magazines I would steal out from under my brother's mattress.
"Buhh... Guhh..." I began to stutter, before Willie ghost kicked me in the nads. It didn't hurt, but it made me shiver all over.
"Hi! How may I help you?" chirped the beautiful lady. I suddenly remembered why I was standing before her, and found my voice again.
"I understand that you are an acquaintance's of Willie Wong? I don't know if you've heard, but recently he-"
"WHEEEELIEEEE!" shrieked the woman. Whatever beauty had shone on her face now had been completely replaced with rage and hatred.
"I, uhh-" I began, but she cut me off.
"Wheeliekins. Yes. He's dead now. Wish I could have done it myself. He was such a scumbag. I loved him and gave him everything. I bought him a six-foot tall teddy bear on his birthday. It was almost as big as your hairdo. I sewed all our shirts together, so we could play 'pretend conjoined-twin lovers'. But it was obviously not good enough for him, because he went and dumped me! He said "I need my space, get away from me, you crazy bitch." WHEEEEELIEEEE!!!"
Wheel- err, Willie then tapped me on the back, and signaled that we should get the hell out of there. I wasn't in much of a mood to disagree, seeing as how I was scared to the point where I was about to automatically empty my bladder. I ran for the hills.
At the playground below her apartment, I sat on one end of a see-saw while Willie sat on the other end. It is entirely pointless trying to play on a see-saw with a ghost, naturally.
"Dude, she is one hell of a psycho. She would make a valid point in the argument for mail-order brides. Why did you even want to see her again?"
Willie was laughing really hard. "She always was such a live wire. We had a good run, we did. But she had to ruin everything by forcing me to play that freaky conjoined twin lovers game. Seriously, it's like some bad plot device for an incest story. As for why I wanted to see her again, I guess it's not rocket science. She was my hottest girlfriend."
"I'm not buying that, Willie," I replied sharply. "Frankly, I find your whole reason for looking up people who, you know for a fact, hate your guts, to be nothing but a big fat lie. What is this, a performance review of this reincarnation run? You gonna jot that down in your astral journal, so that next lifetime you won't go branding your classmates like cattle or dating crazy chicks?"
Willie started to laugh again. It was a laugh that made my heart beat with hatred with every 'Ha'.
"Kid, you've got the gift to converse with ghosts, don't confuse that with the ability to empathise with us. After I died, all the things that happened in my life, the things that seemed so big and grand, suddenly appeared so small and petty. The only feeling left behind in the bitter aftertaste of my passing was the longing to be remembered. The reason didn't matter. Because if people forget you, it's like you were never born in the first place. In all honesty, I really had fun with Chong, and before she turned psycho on me, the best part of my teenage life was spent with my ex. Its just nice knowing they remember me. In their own sick, twisted way."
Willie crossed over shortly after that. I never quite understood what he meant. I always assumed that I'd have to die before I could. That is why, as I write this, I am currently sitting on the ledge on the 20th floor of my apartment building.
Kidding. This is just a lengthy reflection letter for having burnt one of my classmates severely with a hot dollar coin.
the end
email: prinnydo0d [at] hotmail.com
When the average person is posed the question as to whether they would like to have the ability to see ghosts, you will probably get one of two reactions: "Yes", or "No." If asked the above question, I would give a definite, solid "Nyeeah". Because I already can.
If most of what you know about ghosts comes from R.L. Stein books, or movies starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore, then I can only lower my head in the shame of your blissful ignorance. Trust me, ghosts aren't nearly as intriguing as the Hollywood fat cats want you to believe.
The oldest ghosts I've seen are like, 800 years old. Imagine spending the weekend with your 80 year old Grandma. Yeah, it's like ten times more boring than that. Apparently, senility doesn't stop once you lose your physical form, your brain along with it.
No, I don't go "Ghost Whisperer" on any of them. I can't be bothered, really. It would take me like, what, a week to help someone fulfill his or her last wish? In that time, think of how many people would have died and become ghosts. It's like trying to imagine Santa delivering presents to children all around the world in a single night.
There was this one exception, though. Just that one ghost- seriously, I never met anyone, living or dead, who was nearly as bizarre and disturbing as Willie.
I was on my way home from school one day many years ago. Even at the tender age of fifteen, I had already learnt that ignoring ghosts was the best prevention against weird. However, that day I encountered a ghost so hideous it was simply impossible to look away.
Before I could stop myself from staring by delivering a sharp punch to my own groin, the ghost looked straight at me. It was not a glare of malice, nor was there even a sliver of loneliness showing on his 50% opacity face. Although he looked like he bit the bullet well after his twentieth birthday, his face (ugly as it was to behold) bore the grin of a seven year-old who just won a trip to Wonka's chocolate sweatshop for Oompa Loompas.
I knew that look. It was the look of hope, like he had found the one person who could save him from having to walk the earth for all time.
As mentioned earlier, I have a very strict policy regarding helping ghosts walk into the light. For a visual illustration, please refer to the logo used by the Ghostbusters. I didn't care if I looked like Wonka with a pimp cane and a purple silk top hat to him, I was neither a snappy dresser, nor did I intend on being his golden ticket.
"Avert thy eyes, o' unholy fiend!", I began to recite. "If thus your fate be to roaming the cursed land of Toa Payoh, let not I, a mere mortal of fourteen winters, be one to paddle your boat against the wind of fate blowing in your sails!"
The ghost kind of just stood there, his smile fading from his already faded face. A definite step up, as it helped hide his teeth so yellow that the strong mustard shade showed even at 50% opacity. After a while, he spoke in an extremely normal voice that contradicted his face that not even a mother could love.
"What the hell is that? You started out like some Catholic priest, sidetracked to Lord of the Rings halfway through, then finished off like a Pirates of the Caribbean movie marathon. I mean, seriously. Sixteen winters? It's freakin' Singapore, it's ALWAYS summer here. You've probably never even experienced ONE winter."
I wanted badly to retort with "This one time, I went on a ski trip to Korea with my parents", but I thought better of it. Having just got royally served by an apparition, I decided to just ignore him, go home, and thank God that no one had just witnessed that moment of severe embarrassment.
As I walked away, I could hear him continuing to rant stuff like "And I'm wearing a pair of jeans and T-shirt, did you really think I was from the 18th Century? Eh, Einstein?" and "The only unholy thing I see is your haircut!" But desperately trying to find higher moral ground, I swiftly departed, hoping that he wouldn't follow me home.
Fortunately, although he obviously had no sense of personal hygiene when he was alive, he at least had the good sense not to follow me home like a weird ghost stalker. Unfortunately, as I had to find out the following day, he had not forgotten our little encounter.
He was leaning against a tree at the exact spot I had met him the previous day, glaring at me like I had just slaughtered his first-born. I decided that the best way to sever all ties with the weirdo was to simply tell him to make like a tree and leave.
"Hey Uggo, quit staring at me. I'm not gonna help you, so why don't you just make like a banana and split?"
"Doesn't it feel good to talk like a real person, and not some super geek?" he replied with a smug smile. "Besides, it was you who started gawking at me first yesterday."
"Yeah, well, uhh, it's just, I've never seen anyone, dead or alive, who had both a unibrow and a lazy eye, all on the same face," I spat back. "Look, just give it up. I couldn't care less about what happens to people who have already gone six feet under. Way I see it, you might even be set for a one way ticket to hell even if you do cross over, so you ought to be grateful that you can gaze out at the Kallang River, instead of the River Styx."
He looked a little taken aback. Just as I thought, it had probably never crossed his mind that he might be hell bound. "So, just, yeah. Leave me alone from now on."
I turned to make a hasty retreat while he was temporarily stunned. Except, as I was to soon find out, nothing could stun Willie for longer than three seconds.
"I don't care!" I heard him shout, as I continued to briskly walk my butt out of there. One thing I learnt about ghosts is, they don't need actual working feet to move. It's one of the reasons I never use the expression "Let's beat feet." In less than a split second, he was already right in front of me.
"I don't care," he whispered, much softer this time. "I want my closure. And I'm gonna stalk you till you agree to help me."
"Do you really think you're the first ghost to threaten me with that? You all go on and say 'you are a mere mortal, and I have forever. I can just hang around you till the day you agree to help me, or the day you die.' But the thing about your kind is, if you were so good at commitments, you wouldn't be trapped in limbo the way you all are now. The longest I've ever had a ghost follow me around was 2 days. Then she got bored with the crocodile tear routine, and just left. You know how people always say 'have some respect for the dead'? I think the problem is that the dead have no respect for the living. Shoo."
I knew I had just done the moral equivalent of rolling a barrel of puppies down a steep slope, but I didn't care. I watched his face, waiting for the look of disappointment I had seen on many ghost's faces over the past few years. However, much to my surprise, he burst into hearty laughter.
"Hate to break it to you, but I'm not like those other spineless wads you've come across. I didn't die and regret anything. Everything I did while I was alive, I can look back at proudly with my pale chest thrown out in pride. The only reason I'm still stuck on this mud ball is simple curiosity."
"You mean... something like, you forgot how you died and you want to find out?"
"Quite the opposite, really," he replied with a smirk. "I want to know... how I LIVED!"
"That's... wow. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
"And your haircut is the stupidest thing I've ever seen, so that makes us even. Look, I could really use your help. It won't take long. Way I estimate, this won't take more than an afternoon of your time. We could get started now, and you could still be home to watch whatever crappy dramas they're showing on Channel 8 tonight."
"T-those have some educational value," I muttered to myself. Despite having never felt the urge to help anything other-worldly before, for the first time in my life, I felt a slight curiosity tabout his curiosity. Also, there was something about his positive attitude - the way he didn't seem to go all My Chemical Romance on me like all the others.
"Fine, whatever. I'll help you out. Don't spread the word, though; this is strictly a one-time thing. I don't want any other spooks showing up asking for help. Doctor Dolittle I am not."
His crooked smile contorted into some crazy shape that made me positive his lips were made out of Play Doh. "Awesome. It's really simple for me; I just want to know how people remember me after I died. I just want you to talk to a couple of people for me, and ask what they thought of me. Then I'll leave you alone."
"Self absorbed, much?" I replied. "Pfft, whatever. Let's just get this over with. Where's the first stop?"
"I was thinking, I want to hear what one of my Primary School classmates thought of me. In a strange twist of fate, he's now a teacher at a school just a stone's throw from here."
"Alright, alright. Lead the way. And don't try any of that spooky stuff on me. I swear, if you try to give me a wet willy on the way there, I'll go Constantine on your ass and exorcise you."
"Funny you should mention that, cos that's my name. Willie Wong, pleasure." he announced proudly.
I wanted to say something about how his parents must have harbored some deep contempt for his birth to give him a name so horrid, but thought it would have been in bad taste.
Apparently, Willie must have had himself a pair of Herculean arms, because his idea of a "stone's throw away" was a good forty five minutes walk. I wondered what kind of person would have been so unfortunate as to have spent his childhood in the same school as Weird Willie.
"St. Hilda's Primary" was the ordinary looking school we found ourselves in front of after the exhausting walk. "That totally counts towards my daily cardio," I breathed heavily. "So who is this friend of yours?"
"Actually, I wouldn't go so far as to call him my friend. He really had it in for me as a kid. He hated my guts and I hated his."
"Why would you care what he thinks, then?" I asked, perturbed. Willie was turning out to be more of a weirdo than even I could have fathomed.
"Because all the people who cared showed up at my funeral, and I already got to hear all the nice things they had to say about me. My Mom even did that thing where she openly grieved and tried to be buried with to me; a dramatic gesture, and one I did enjoy watching. Brought a tear to my eye."
"Just the one good eye, then? May I refer to you as One-eyed Willie, then?" I had agreed to help him, but I didn't agree to being nice about it.
Just as Willie was about to attempt to ghost punch me in the gut, a strict and gruff looking man walked right up to me. I was pretty sure he was a teacher the moment I laid my eyes on him. First off, we were in a school, that was part of the giveaway, but there's something about the aura teachers have about them. Like they hate kids with all their heart and soul.
"Young man," spoke the pot-bellied man in a voice so low, I'm sure the ants scurrying below could hear it before I could, "That haircut of yours is a disgrace to this school, and to the human race. And the laws of physics."
The teacher was obviously senile although he was under thirty, which was quite the feat. I mean, I was obviously neither a primary school student, nor was I wearing the uniform. I had to let that comment about my hair fly, though.
"Sir, I'm just here looking for a teacher... uh-"
"Chong," Willie whispered to me.
"Mr. Chong." I threw in a smile for the heck of it.
"That would be me," he replied. Figures. I guessed that people around Willie's age had never heard of hair product. At least I didn't have to search the whole school looking for him.
"Hi, I'm Willie Wong's nephew, who, as you may already know, passed away pretty recently. I'm writing a short tribute on him, and he mentioned you on many occasions, so I thought it would be nice if you could say a few words about him." I was a pretty good liar. Something I shouldn't have been so proud about.
"Willie snuffed it? No surprise. Anyway, you came barking up the wrong tree, boy. I have absolutely nothing good to say about him. In the six years I had to spend in the same class as him, I can honestly say that he had not the slightest hint of kindness or compassion in his heart."
"See this?" he asked, as he lifted up his shirt, revealing a strange burn mark that looked like a rectangle with six circles inside.
"Little bastard heated up a block of Lego, and used it to brand me. If it's anyone's fault my children have never gotten to on their birthdays or Christmas, it would be his."
I kind of glanced over in Willie's direction, he just kinda gave a shrug and started giggling madly. It was obvious he didn't feel sorry at all. I decided to press for more details.
"I'm, uhh, actually taking a unique journalistic angle for this tribute. Good or bad, I want it all in. So if you could just sum up how you feel about Willie now that he's gone, in, say, three to four sentences, that would be swell."
I'm going to omit the three or four sentences that he proceeded to shout menacingly. It was responsible for filling a few pages in my vulgar vocabulary book. Willie didn't seem to mind, though.
"Hahaha, good Ol' Chong. He's quite the grudge bearer," he said quite spiritedly after we had left the school.
"I really don't get you," I said. "He had nothing but nasty things to say. Are you sure that doing this will help you cross over? I don't want you following me around as long as I live. That'd fill my life with regrets and make me become a ghost when I die. I don't want to be part of the vicious cycle."
"Hahaha, don't worry about it. Knowing that his children will grow up hating him for being a cruel tyrant is good enough for me."
I kind of saw his point, but refused to admit it. Saying it out loud would only make it seem like we had something in common. And at that point in time, Willie was the one being I had no intention of being associated with.
"That's one down, just one place left to go. My ex-girlfriend didn't turn up at my funeral. Don't really blame her, though. Girl had it bad for me. She would've probably had the bawlfest of a lifetime," Willie said, with a slight air of pride.
I didn't want to imagine what kind of woman would fall in love with a weirdo like Willie, so I just politely asked for directions and we got on a direct bus route to his ex-girlfriend's place.
Along the way, Willie seemed to show great interest in my "talent".
"Come on, tell me how you do it. Far as I know, you're the only one I've ever seen who can see and speak with ghosts. Do you have the third eye? Do you come from a long ancestry of ghost excorcists or something?"
I saw no harm in telling him. After all, dead men don't speak. "You know how, when people go blind, or lose one of their five senses, their other four senses get greatly enhanced?" I began in a severe tone.
"I think I saw that on the discovery channel or something, yeah," replied Willie, sounding extremely excited. "Go on!"
"Well, I lost the most important sense of all in order to acquire this power."
"What? What?! Come on, stop stalling, tell me!"
"The sense I lost was... my common sense."
Willie looked kind of serious for a moment, before bursting into ghostly laughter.
"Damn, Kid, you've got quite the sense of humour. No, seriously. How'd you do it?"
"Actually, I am completely serious. This one time when I was seven, I took a bath with a plugged in toaster. I thought it would be awesome to see what boiled bread would have tasted like. For better or for worse, I've been able to see and hear ghosts ever since. Perhaps a part of me died that day, and I'm kind of stuck in between."
Willie smiled. "You sure are lucky. I was driving home from work," Willie began to recall, "And got into an accident. Sandwiched between an eighteen-wheeler and a taxi, but you don't see me turning into a psychic or something."
I kind of stopped talking for awhile. I had at least that much tact.
After a long bus ride, and a short walk, we arrived at his ex-girlfriend's apartment. I began picturing a woman who could rival Willie in terms of hideousness. I could've sworn I threw up a little in my mouth. I knocked on the door of her HDB flat and then waited.
"Coming, coming already!" I heard someone shouting from inside the house. Willie was looking into the reflection off a window, trying to comb his hair, which was entirely futile.
When the front door was flung open, I choked on the bit of vomit I was trying hard to swallow from earlier. Before me stood one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. I'd never seen a woman as pretty as her outside of the magazines I would steal out from under my brother's mattress.
"Buhh... Guhh..." I began to stutter, before Willie ghost kicked me in the nads. It didn't hurt, but it made me shiver all over.
"Hi! How may I help you?" chirped the beautiful lady. I suddenly remembered why I was standing before her, and found my voice again.
"I understand that you are an acquaintance's of Willie Wong? I don't know if you've heard, but recently he-"
"WHEEEELIEEEE!" shrieked the woman. Whatever beauty had shone on her face now had been completely replaced with rage and hatred.
"I, uhh-" I began, but she cut me off.
"Wheeliekins. Yes. He's dead now. Wish I could have done it myself. He was such a scumbag. I loved him and gave him everything. I bought him a six-foot tall teddy bear on his birthday. It was almost as big as your hairdo. I sewed all our shirts together, so we could play 'pretend conjoined-twin lovers'. But it was obviously not good enough for him, because he went and dumped me! He said "I need my space, get away from me, you crazy bitch." WHEEEEELIEEEE!!!"
Wheel- err, Willie then tapped me on the back, and signaled that we should get the hell out of there. I wasn't in much of a mood to disagree, seeing as how I was scared to the point where I was about to automatically empty my bladder. I ran for the hills.
At the playground below her apartment, I sat on one end of a see-saw while Willie sat on the other end. It is entirely pointless trying to play on a see-saw with a ghost, naturally.
"Dude, she is one hell of a psycho. She would make a valid point in the argument for mail-order brides. Why did you even want to see her again?"
Willie was laughing really hard. "She always was such a live wire. We had a good run, we did. But she had to ruin everything by forcing me to play that freaky conjoined twin lovers game. Seriously, it's like some bad plot device for an incest story. As for why I wanted to see her again, I guess it's not rocket science. She was my hottest girlfriend."
"I'm not buying that, Willie," I replied sharply. "Frankly, I find your whole reason for looking up people who, you know for a fact, hate your guts, to be nothing but a big fat lie. What is this, a performance review of this reincarnation run? You gonna jot that down in your astral journal, so that next lifetime you won't go branding your classmates like cattle or dating crazy chicks?"
Willie started to laugh again. It was a laugh that made my heart beat with hatred with every 'Ha'.
"Kid, you've got the gift to converse with ghosts, don't confuse that with the ability to empathise with us. After I died, all the things that happened in my life, the things that seemed so big and grand, suddenly appeared so small and petty. The only feeling left behind in the bitter aftertaste of my passing was the longing to be remembered. The reason didn't matter. Because if people forget you, it's like you were never born in the first place. In all honesty, I really had fun with Chong, and before she turned psycho on me, the best part of my teenage life was spent with my ex. Its just nice knowing they remember me. In their own sick, twisted way."
Willie crossed over shortly after that. I never quite understood what he meant. I always assumed that I'd have to die before I could. That is why, as I write this, I am currently sitting on the ledge on the 20th floor of my apartment building.
Kidding. This is just a lengthy reflection letter for having burnt one of my classmates severely with a hot dollar coin.
the end