11th through 14th August. Packed my bags, left my work behind and went on a short vacation in Udon Thani, Thailand. Spent a few days in near seclusion from civilization.
It was a great couple of days cycling in the rurals and relaxing at the hangar. But the main highlight? I came here for another skydiving feat.
I don’t know where to start. And I’m not certain if we’ve seen the end of it yet. Two of my little turtles are missing now and none of us could explain how a stray fish appeared, disappeared and reappeared in our backyard. The electricity throughout the neighborhood was out for hours and of all times, this happened.
Feels like I’m in my own episode of X-Files. Here’s what happened…
It’s been at least two months since the last time I came back to Johor to see Mom and Ashley. And 3 nights ago on 1st August, the electricity throughout the neighborhood was out and we were in pitch darkness by surprise.
We lit candles inside and outside the house. I asked Mom how often this happens and she recalled this is the second time it ever happened; first time it happened was last year.
It was the start of the Ramadhan fasting season and the neighborhood security guard was not around. Call me paranoid but I felt it all to be too good a coincidence. So vigilantly, I set up my powerful flashlights outside the now dark backyard.
For more than an hour, I sat outside in the backyard, surfing on my Iphone. When I entered the house for a few minutes, this was when the first freaky thing happened: Ashley found a fish in the drain… still alive! She called me out and in a hurry, I went to check it out too.
I was surprised but I quickly fetched the fish net, scooped it up and put it in our grotto to save it. It was flopping around and it took a bit of effort to scoop it up. It was upside down when I put it into the pond.
Ashley and I turned to each other, and we looked around. How the heck did a fish get there??
It’s not one of ours (it looks like your average fish you’d see in a morning market).
No one else could have thrown it there (we stay in a corner house and we have a clear view of anyone or any car passing by).
And it’s definitely not the work of a stray animal (there are no cats in my area and even if so, the fish would have been dead). I must add that when we found the fish, it was dry.
What transpired next was further unexplainable: in the less than a minute we both looked away from the grotto, we came back only to find that fish disappeared!
NOW, THIS IS ABSOLUTELY F-R-E-A-K-Y. We turned off the valve to the little fountain to have a clearer view on inside the grotto, and we couldn’t find the fish at all… it just VANISHED!
We looked around the pond as maybe it jumped out. But it was nowhere to be seen. Again that’s highly unlikely – no fish or turtle are strong enough to jump out of the grotto, let alone a dying fish. The night was quiet and still and we would have heard it anyway.
Was there an intruder in the house compound? No, our dog Auwlithe would had been the first to know.
I was already uneasy with the whole episode that just transpired in the window of time when the electricity is out.
While Mom and Ashley had to go to sleep because they have to start their next day early, I remained outside and highly alert, with a baton resting by my side… just in case. I already had a bad feeling about this whole shit.
I also paced back and forth the grotto and backyard in search of the fish that disappeared without a trace. The electricity came back at 1 in the morning and with all the lights in the backyard on, I still found nothing. I went to sleep.
The next morning when the maids came over to clean the house, they found the fish in the backyard, near the drain where we first found it – it was already DEAD and teeming with flies.
I was shocked again. I spent most of the previous night in the backyard and didn’t find it, and mysteriously it reappeared there! I text Ashley to let her know before I disposed it into the bin. All of us were still surprised and could not explain it.
Then another shit happened: later that evening, I fed my turtles in the grotto as usual. But when I counted my turtles, I noted that one of my baby turtles was missing!
I love my turtles a lot and of course, I panicked. I quickly scanned the backyard again and couldn’t find it.
There’s absolutely NO WAY it could leave the grotto (even the big ones couldn’t do that).
Work of a stray animal? Nope, there are no cats in my area. And red ear sliders are known to be deceptively fast when approached by a prey as they slide into the water.
Or did someone intrude the house compound deliberately? Nonsense. Auwlithe is a trusted guard of the house. And if there was a thief, he wouldn’t settle for stealing just one baby turtle.
I was growing distraught about the whole episode. I was to drive to PJ that night and as I was driving home, I already felt in my guts that my next baby turtle could be the next to go.
And… I was right.
Just this evening, my sister phoned in to inform me the next baby turtle is now missing without a trace! The other turtles seemed unharmed or untouched, probably because they are big. Our grotto fishes are fine too, and their numbers are correct.
So some random fish appeared, disappeared and reappeared in my backyard. And then I have two baby turtles that vanished without a trace from the grotto. And we have no explanation as to how it happened.
I’m feeling angry right now and probably the worst part is, I have no idea what or who is doing all these. And I’m not certain that the episode is over yet.