Monday, April 02, 2007

Lost Soul at the Bus Stop There is a bus stop at Mount Vernon that I'm told is haunted. For non-Singapore residents, Mount Vernon is a road between two cemeteries. A Christian one, on one side, and a Muslim one, on the other.
Why I say it's haunted? Well, I've been in many taxis and when the drivers are talkative, they most likely will tell you this story when you ask them about ghostly encounters. They say, if you travel through mount Vernon Road between midnight and 4am - if you are lucky - you will see a beautiful young Malay mother with a baby in her arms.
One time, there was an ignorant taxi driver who happened to pick her up. She boarded the taxi and just pointed ahead without saying a word. So, the driver drove on ahead. After some minutes, he asked her where she wanted to go, but she just smiled and instructed him, with a hand gesture, to go straight ahead. Mount Vernon is a long stretched road and as the taxi approached the end of it, at the junction, he asked her, again, where exactly she wanted to go. She simply replied, "balik rumah"(going home). He was a little annoyed by her ambiguous reply and made his impatience felt with his next remark. He complaint. "Ya lah, lu mau balik rumah, mana lu punya rumah lu misti cakap lah, aiyah susah lah ini macam".(Yes, I know you want to go home but where the heck is your home? Gosh, you’re giving me a hard time!).
She was hurt and started sobbing. Feeling guilty, he apologised then asked her again, nicely that time, what her address was. She then asked to be taken back to the place she boarded his taxi.
The irate driver was furious and made an angry, sharp, U-turn and headed the other way back to the spot he picked her up from.
Busy nagging, he failed to realise that she was no longer seated in the back seat. When he did look in the mirror, he was horrified by her non-presence. Then, he smelt a sweet smelling scent of frangipani flower. (This flower is associated with death.) He was chilled to the bones with fear and sped off out of Mount Vernon Road all the way home. He never traveled along Mount Vernon Road after midnight anymore since the experience.
Other taxi drivers have also picked up the mother with a child but had different experiences with her. Some would realise immediately after she came aboard that she was a ghost, some would not even notice anything strange until they smelt a sweet scent – then on, a cool head is very necessary.

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