Ghosts?? Do they Exist? A tale of the Yesteryears Rubber Estate

Do ghosts exist? After decades, I'm still wondering. My father was a  rubber estate owner, and my childhood was spent among nature deep in the trees lined rubber estates.Each privately owned rubber estate were  between at least  three to ten acres apart. Some were hectares so our  nearest neighbours were at least a mile or two away.You're practically isolated in your own private land.

 In days past, there were no electricity and water. We make do with gas lamps and well water. For transportation, we have our trustworthy bicycles and motorcycles. Most families have mini  animal farms and vegetable farms  within their own estate land. We too keep plenty of  chicken, ducks, geese, turkeys and pigeons, all enclosed in this fenced up environment  a few minutes  from the family home. We were pretty self sufficient.More than enough fresh eggs, meat and vegetables for daily survival. Sweet potatoes and turnips were  a plenty. The soil was just so suited for those food plants.What is your term for them? Veg?

There were streams running through our estate and so we have our own natural ponds for the ducks and geese to splash around and enjoy their natural habitat .The enclosure also prevented them from wandering out of the estate. The streams with ice cold water have loads of colorful fishes swimming merrily. We never knew where the source of those clear cold water came from, it just flowed in from across other estate land.I used to spend hours just wading in the icy cold water catching those tiny fishes, putting them in a bottle and then emptying them back to the stream until that fateful day when  I took home a bottle of colourful fishes. That night I had a frightful dream. The fishes turned into babies and they were crying out for their mothers.Their human looking mothers weren't pleasant looking!!Rather hideous with sharp shark like teeth.  First thing the next morning, I poured everything back into the stream and kept my hands away from them but I still spend time playing on the sandy banks of those streams. How on earth do those fine sands get into estate land?

We lived in a large wooden house with the kitchen separated from the main building. There was this short open passage joining the main house to the kitchen. In the day time, it's nice and cool but at night if you want to go to the kitchen for anything, you have to leave the safe confine of the main house and walk along the open passage, which can be quite daunting as the whole place was in darkness and you do not have electricity just gas and kerosene lamps which were rather dimmed and their lights would cast such huge shadows that you are practically  frightened out of your wits by your own shadow, especially when the wind blows and the leaves rustled eerily in the dark.For safety, we keep plenty of dogs and boy, can they howl! And you know what they say ,when dogs howl....When you see them with their tails between their legs, you know they have seen something unpleasant which cannot be human , and their fear gets on to you! You can't run in case the flame go out leaving you in the dark -vulnerable to the night creatures which may be prowling around. And if you fall and drop the lamps, it would be a real nightmare.

 Owls are a common sight at night and when their glistening huge eyes follow you around, fear set your heart pounding so fast that you could hardly breathe. Oh, we normally move around in pairs but even then, we break out in cold sweat  in the night sky whenever we were away from the safe confines of the main house. It was as though the cold has taken a life of its own and it sorts of reach out and splash their iciness on you!

Due to the huge land at our disposal, most families would plant fruit trees around their homes. We had two huge jumbu trees just next to the imposing kitchen. One bore white fruits and the other pink but both were equally sweet and juicy.

 Some distance away, we also had nangka, umbra, rambutan and mangosteen. Yes, we even had a langsat tree which seldom bore fruits, but the miniature coconut trees were amazing. They were always over loaded with orange coloured coconuts, we could pluck them without any trouble. Estate owners children create their own entertainment.If we were not helping with the housework or at school, we would be climbing the fruit trees and gorging  ourselves full with the sweet fruits. Those two jumbu trees next to our kitchen were extraordinary. They were always hanging with fruits. My sisters and I would often be up standing on the sturdy branches hauling in the fruits. Daily we would have baskets full of jumbo to eat to our hearts; content. They never ran out and never go out of season. Funny thing about those trees though, they were perfect playground  from morning to afternoon. Come late afternoon, it was a different story. The air around the two trees would get chiller and chiller. By early evening, our hairs would start standing on ends and the warmth of the place would totally disappear and nobody want to be anywhere near them. I always wonder and I still do if those trees house ghosts or spirits. For many years after we moved away from the estates I had nightmares -  playing with a group of children beneath those trees and later being sucked  up by the spirit of those jumbo trees. It was always the image of me trying to run away but prevented by some unseen force.It only disappeared when I learnt to pray in earnest.

Some areas in the rubber estate were chillier than others. Take for example, the place where two giantic  bushes of bamboo shoots stood. Towards evening that place becomes a  cold room-icy cold. A different sort of  wind seems to blow along that particular stretch where the bamboo shoots stood. Rumor has it that  young children slaughtered by the Japanese were buried there and bamboo shoots just sprang up over their graves. A few meters away  was a narrow road linking one estate to the next. It was on that road that many villagers were captured and beheaded. That road was bathe with the blood of hundreds who died during the Japanese occupation. Truth or myth? Again we only have hearsay and the eerie atmosphere to support the tales.

For a number of years,  we do not have a toilet within the house although later that was rectified. The toilet was a single unit standing some distance away from the house. When someone needs to go, the whole household would follow to keep company as nobody wants to be out of the house alone. Sometimes, we see balls of fire popping up and down on that road and although they were quite a distance away, still they brought terror to our hearts. We would huddled close together and yelled to the person in the toilet to hurry up. Things became slightly better when we could purchase large torch lights and we need not leave the house at night  for nature calls.By the time electricity reached the estates, we had long moved away. We moved to a more modern house away from the estates after my father passed away. The estate was just too isolated  for a woman with young children.

 It does not help that we were living in the midst of  frightful locations where strange things happen. All those stories of young men giving lifts to pretty young girls only to find their bicycles weighed down heavily until they were unable to move  and when they turned to find out out the cause, they always find themselves carrying a huge slap of stone. Many young men had fallen ill after playing the good Samaritan . For a time, nobody travels on that road  at night. Legend has it that even if you travel in groups, you are not safe from their advances.Wild tales OR???

What were those mysterious popping and flying lights? I used to wonder and I still wonder. Recently when I went back to the old village, I checked out the rubber estate where we used to live. They are now gone. Development had taken over. The whole area is now a modern housing estate with our particular estate land being been turned into a hawker cum market place. All that remains of those frightful times were nightmarish childhood memories which are also fading away. But I  still wander at those strange yesteryear's occurrences which frightened the life out of us. Pity the estate children. Were they spirits or restless ghosts? Do they actually exist? I am still undecided. I really don't know and I really do not want to know. The wise elders of the village often tell children, leave the spirits alone and they will leave you alone. They have their world and we, ours. Stop being curious, mind your own business. It is for the best. I believe they are right, so I'll just throw that question out  to the wind and let them blow them away. None of our business. :) We have better things to do.  :) :)