In Continuum.

After that night though, my parents decided to keep a weapon in the bedside drawers - just in case. The so-called weapon? A butcher knife bigger than my head. Imagine you are another robber breaking into a house, only to find the owners of the house sleeping in the bedroom. But it's too late, your break in woke them up, and one of them is chasing after you with a butcher knife bigger than your head. I bet if running into the police station is the only way to save your neck, you would. You should have seen the size of that knife, it would have slaughtered an elephant, I can bet my dollars on that one. But anyway, this story remained with me for a long time, but the possibilities of that ever happening in a place like Singapore are pretty low, since I live on the nineteenth floor. But I am here in Taiwan now, and the same incident almost happened to me just this morning when I woke up in bed.

It was a long day out with Jeannie and her family yesterday, walking around Taipei was a tiring thing especially in my brand new shoes. But anyway, last night was an easy night for me to fall asleep, it was a matter of minutes before I drifted off to dreamland, and I hoped for my last day to be spent sleeping to be honest. That was until I woke up this morning to strange voices in the house, voices that I haven't heard of before. It is not unusual for my father to bring guests home from somewhere to admire the spanking new house. So I listened out in the comfort of my bed for my father's voice, and at the same time rolling about in the warm sheets and the soft pillows. I heard the two men talking, and they were definitely talking to each other rather than anybody else, which was strange because my father never really allows himself to keep quiet in the presence of other guests. So the horrible thought of shadowy figures ransacking through the new house floated into my mind, the image of them all carrying knives and guns scared the living daylight out of me. The images were not helped by the fact that Truman Capote's book In Cold Blood drifted into my mind as well. The whole family being tied up and executed in bed - oh, the horror! 

I listened some more to the conversation that was floating through the opened bedroom door, and I saw shadows flickering in the corridor, people moving about and talking at the same time. I didn't recognize their voices, couldn't match their voices to any faces that I have seen before. So I started to panic in bed, the guns in their hands growing bigger and bigger for some reason. I remember my Dad being the kind of guy who is too lazy to lock the front door, simply because he assumes the estate to be too safe for robbers to infiltrate. Assumptions make an ass out of you and me, and it certainly seemed to be the truth this morning while I lied there, scared out of my wits. I listened even closer to the conversation, and they started admiring the house like a normal guest would - or, like a robber would as he admires his prize. 

"Wow, check out the television, it must be really expensive." the first man said. "Yeah, it must be. Look at the fridge man, it's really big! It must be pretty expensive too." said the second man. Those were the exact words that I heard, and tell me that didn't sound like two guys trying to rob your house. My father left the house earlier in the morning to play golf with a bunch of his friends, and anybody could have snuck into the house while he was away. I started calculating my options, the amount of valuables in the house, a lot of numbers and dollar signs sped through my head at the speed of sound. Mathematics isn't something you should tackle in the early morning, but I was forced to do so because I was calculating the possible monetary loss. What about the possible loss of lives? What if they discover my sister and I sleeping in the rooms, what are they going to do? Tie us up, blindfold us, shoot us in the back of our heads? Anything could have happened with the shadows still flickering in the doorway, so I started looking for a weapon in the bedroom, and I desperately hoped for a butcher knife in the drawers then - and found none.

Alright, alright. Bedroom, what were some of the things I could use as weapons? Cellphone charger, maybe I could use it like a rock tied to the end of a rope and swing the pins into their faces. I'd aim for the eyeballs, aim for their soft spots, maybe the pins would penetrate deep enough, yes that will do. Yes. Wait, it'd look ridiculous to the robbers, it'd look completely bonkers. I needed something else, something more substantial. I needed something hard, something handy. Yes, I had my Macbook with me, and with the battery inside it should be heavy enough. I'd throw it at their heads and hope that it'd crack their skulls, it most definitely would. Wait, what if it does crack their heads and cracks itself at the same time? I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to my Macbook, no way Jose! Alright, let's reconsider the options right now, options. There was a phone line hanging from the wall, maybe I could use it to strangle one of them, it looked soft enough to be twisted around a human neck. It looked like the best option then, but what was I supposed to do with his partner in the mean time? Besides, I'd have to sneak up to them if I wanted to strangle one of them, what about the vase? No, they were in the corridor, I couldn't get to the vase in time - I was doomed.

Then the shadow on the door grew bigger, one of them was coming in. My heart stopped, my breath was held back. I reached for my phone and my glasses to get a clear look at the man in the doorway, a bunch of numbers ran through my head, the emergency numbers and the number for the ambulance, my father's number or my mother's, but nothing came. My thumb hovered over the buttons on the phones and yielded absolutely no numbers whatsoever. The shadow in the door grew bigger, I could see his leg in the doorway now, everything slowed down to a crawl. I didn't expect myself to know this person, and I cursed at my Dad secretly for leaving us behind. Oh yes, I still had my phone in my hand, and that was hard enough. I'd crush his skull when he gets close enough, I'd smash his face into a pulp with my phone. My muscles were ready to jump into action, my sympathetic nervous system kicked in and my heart started to race. It's going to be a fight now, a fight for my life. Let's do this, let's do it!

"Still sleeping huh?" said the man who stepped through the door. "Your Dad would be back soon." I was still grabbing hold of my cellphone, ready to jump off the bed to kill the intruder. But his words confused me, why would he mention about my Dad? The lights from the corridor blinded my eyes, and his silhouette in the doorway was too difficult for me to see him. But I started to make out his facial features, something about the way he stood there in the doorway. I recognized him, who was he? My muscles were still tensed, but before I could ask him about his identity, he left the room and disappeared down the hall. Still, I was a little unsure of the situation, my weapon still in my hand. Then I heard the door opening, a familiar voice came down the corridors and into the bedroom. It was my father's voice, and he laughed and talked to the people as if they were friends. Wait, maybe they were friends, maybe he is some relative of mine I couldn't be bothered to remember. Whatever it was, whoever they were, all I wanted to do was to murder my father.

I told my aunt and mother about the incident of the strange voices later, and they sympathized with the situation. My mother thought that I should have locked the bedroom door, but she obviously forgot that the lock on the door is pathetically small - a dog could have knocked it down without even trying. My father is the kind of guy who is that absent-minded, forgetting about the little details. I mean, if you are going to bring people home, stay with them. Don't put them in your home and run away elsewhere. At least tell me about their presence before disappearing, isn't that common sense. Oh yes, sometimes my father does lack that. He's smart, he's really smart. Give him a toothbrush and he is probably going to be able to start a car with it. But when it comes to such things, a circuit can be short sometimes, a little loose in the head at times. He asked for a little bit of soda during lunch, I refused him of it. It wash his punishment for instilling fear into me this morning. Don't call me petty, put yourself in that situation. Yeah, yeah that's right. It's petrifying.