In Continuum.

Electric Drills From Hell

I haven't got Monday blues, at least that is not the case for most of my Mondays. Mondays and I are good friends, we don't cross each others' lines. I wake up casually every Monday, and pretty much take my time to get ready for school, no problem with that. In return, Monday gives me those nice chilly weathers for me to travel to school with, a mutually beneficial relationship indeed. Tuesdays are the bad days, because they are not in the middle of the week and yet, the furtherest distance away from the sacred Friday. The reason why I am good friends with Mondays is because I have only one lesson on Mondays, and the fact that the weekend hangover still lingers on on Monday morning is always a good thing to have as you open your eyes to the brand new week. But today, of all days, it was more than just the Monday blues that struck me, but the Monday BLACK. You know how that color is being associated with anything bad throughout the history of mankind. Death wears black, Satan wears black, and the disease that wiped out a third of Europe was conveniently called, the Black Death. Hell, even Simple Plan wears black all the time.

It began like any other morning, with me playing the role of the unsuspecting victim. The alarm clock was set to ten o'clock in the morning, and I remember waking up at 840am, smiling to myself as I realized that I had a little more than an hour left before I had to wake up officially. The next half an hour or so happened pretty much as expected, the way a normal morning would look and smell like. The moisture was still lingering in the wind from the heavy rain the night before, and the sound of the tires running over puddles on the roads could be heard from my bedroom window. The white curtains fluttered like flags, signifying my surrender to the Sandman. I was halfway back to my dream land at that time, my mind spinning into the depths of my mind when it happened. It shattered the peace that I observed on this beautiful Monday morning, and broke the shaky truce between myself and my good friend Monday. My neighbor upstairs, unleashed Hell upon my bedroom in the form - of multiple electric drills.

It came without warning like the Tsunami or an air raid. The silence in my room was rudely disturbed by the drilling upstairs, as I pictured workers in their jump suits running electric drills into their walls and floor. The constant "ARR ARR" sound was driving me up the wall, and I tried to cover my ears with the thick blankets I cover myself with every night. But the dreadful sounds ignored the fabric of my blanket and invaded my eardrums anyway. They resonated down the corridors, bounced off the posters on my wall, and ran into my ears and wrecked havoc inside. It was like taking a tea spoon and jamming it into my ears, then spinning it a dozen times to turn my brain into a pulp. I cursed for the workers upstairs to stop, because it was half an hour before I should be officially up and running. But they were oblivious to my vulgar pleas, and continued to drill into the walls as if they were in the middle of a Nevada desert.

The problem is, this is not the first time I am having problems with my neighbors. The problems aren't serious enough for a lawsuit, because renovation is just part of what you are supposed to accept, living in an apartment or a condo. You cannot sue your neighbors upstairs, because you guys share the same piece of ceilings and floors. My family has been living with the neighbors in relative peace for the better part of the past ten years, and we have seen and heard more troubles than electric drills in our time here. Anything from manic Christian gospels, to homicidal neighbors downstairs who tried to kill each other, and the same manic Christian neighbor who had a manic Christian daughter. As if the electric drills from Hell aren't bad enough, they came and they made it worse than before.

Four families share the same floor on my block, and three of them are devoted Christians. All of them have huge crosses hung outside their homes, and one of them also has a wooden board that read "God Bless This Home", or something like that. I have nothing against them of course, because this is a free country and everybody has a choice as to what kind of religion they want to adopt. My mother never attempted to shove her Taoism beliefs down our neighbor's throats, knowing that they are never going to accept the fact that my family prays to wooden statues at home. A relative of mine once cried her eyes out during a family gathering in Taiwan, because we were all praying to wooden statues, and she called them materialized demons from Hell, or something like that. To me, she sounded more like an imp from Hell's gates more than anything else, really. The point is, I am fine with what you want to believe, just don't come knocking on my door every other day, to try to make me come to your side of the fence. No thanks, my side of the grass is greener than yours. Even if it is not, at least it tastes better.

That is pretty much what they do once in a while, knocking on my front door to share with my family some cookies they baked, or some chocolates they made. Staying away from religious conflicts is one thing, being crazy is the other. You must be crazy to reject such offers, and I'd usually accept them with a broad smile on my face - though what I really mean most of the time is "OK, I am closing the door in your face now, go away!" But of course, they are not very good at reading non-verbal cues. After giving me those boxes of chocolates, they will start to tell me about how it'd be nice if I can join them at their church this coming Sunday, because they are organizing some evangelistic event, and would like me to come along with them. Of course, it was nice of them to consider the possibility that I might end up in the gates of Hell if I do not convert to their religion as soon as possible. I always have the urge to tell them that Islam has the same ideology that non-Muslims go to Hell too, so we are all going to end up there no matter what. Besides, I'm sure Hell has rock music.

I think the neighbor downstairs has either moved out, or died. I remember a couple of years ago when they first moved into the house downstairs, and it didn't take long for the couple to jump at each others' throats. From my balcony, I could see the light from their bedroom window so slightly, and the shadows of the occupants waving their arms around could be seen from where I as. Accompanied with those shadows were the curses and screaming, and I remember hearing the sound of the female being choked by the male, though it might have very well been the woman choking on her own saliva. Still, it was very likely that the man killed the woman and buried her in the walls or something. That is the only logical explanation I have for the drilling that ensued soon afterwards. This sounds like a very bad version of Hitchcock's Rear Window, but this is very very real.

The same manic Christian family had a manic Christian daughter once. She isn't living with them right now, because the family had an argument a few years ago, and the father remarried with another woman and had two sons. The daughter now lives with her real mother somewhere, and she was an oppressed child indeed. I remember seeing the whole incident happen at my front door, seeing the maid running around the livingroom table, with the daughter chasing after her with a kitchen knife, trying to murder her. The maid was quicker than the daughter who was only thirteen or fourteen at that time, and the rest of the family pounced onto the daughter and managed to prevent any disasters from happening. With the potential homicidal neighbor downstairs and another one in the making just next door, I now realize that I live in a very dangerous neighborhood indeed.

But the man downstairs eventually moved out, living the dead body of his wife in the walls. The daughter moved out with her real mother, whom she might have slaughtered and buried in the walls of her new home as well. That leaves with me with those efforts to rescue me from the fires of hell every Christmas, when they come to convince the family to go to their church. First of all, my parents are really stubborn when it comes to religion, and my mother is the kind of person that believes in respecting other religions. I don't suppose it'd be very nice to go to their church event and then smirk during the sermons. Besides, my neighbors are from City Harvest, and those Christians are on speed, I tell you. Good enough reasons for me to slam the from door into their faces every other Christmas eve. And no, I don't really feel bad about it. There is a line drawn on my front door, they tried to cross it, and my family fought back by not doing anything at all. Blame it on reflexes.

Let's break it down for a while. We got rid of the homicidal neighbor downstairs, the equally homicidal daughter, and I get to feel good about myself every December for slamming my front door shut. I don't suppose I have anything more to complain, but that is when the drilling upstairs began all over again. They pulled the same trick a few years ago during my O level examinations, and drove me absolutely and completely insane. I ran up to the twentieth floor once and just looked into the house with a burning passion that was capable of melting those freshly laid cement on the ground. The workers stared at me with puzzlement, while I returned the favor by staring back with a rage that Satan would have shunned away from. I mean, I was in the middle of an important examination, and there you are making a bee hive in the walls. Those retarded workers even drilled a hole so deep that my home's corridors started leaking once, and they had to come and fix the hole. As if those homicidal neighbors were bad enough, here comes the electric drills from Hell all over again. The worst part were not the drilling, but what happened afterwards. The people living upstairs came home to their brand new house and went," Oh what a beautiful house!" I felt like telling them," That's because I spared it from my ten pound sledge hammer, you ignorant schmucks."

One of this days, I am going to drive one of those drills into the head of the workers. But I think, by posting this entry, I am leaving an evidence to whoever that may chance upon this blog for further investigations. But at this point, I care little anymore. If you find a worker with an electric drill in his right temple, that is because I drove it into his head with a smile on my face. Because I love the part of my mind that still remains peaceful and sane in bright and beautiful Monday mornings. I did it, and I do not regret an ounce of it. With all the noise that I've been through, I've already been to Hell. I'm not afraid to go back there all over again(Insert manic laughter here).