It was almost 3am in the morning. The air drafting about was chilly. I got up bleary-eyed from my room and trudged slowly to the toilet, intending to relieve myself of some burden sloshing about inside me.
As I walked towards the toilet, I heard faint voices around me. Terrible voices, as if they were in agony. Dim lights cast shadows in impossible corners, dancing in rhythm to the voices, seemingly ready to pounce on me. Am I dreaming? No, the internal pressure I was feeling from my urgent need definitely indicated I was very much conscious. I began to tremble, more from my need rather than the chills I was feeling inside me. So I hurried along.
The voices disappeared as I near the toilet and everything became quiet. Too quiet. However, I couldn't care less for there was a flood to be averted and I desperately need to save the livestock.
Just as I was washing my hands after releasing the dam, all of a sudden, a ghostly female voice pierced the air, pelting out an old song. Momentarily, the trickle of water from the tap seemed extreme loud. The air around me became denser as if trying to protect me. Little by little, I raised my sight from the basin and looked into the mirror, expecting to see a pallid figure in white sheet with soaked hair right behind me. Probably one that climbed out of the toilet bowl not a moment ago.
There was nothing.
Of course there was nothing. Silly. I was in the gents of a karaoke. Dim lightings are the norm. Terrible voices in agony, be it from the torturers or the tortured, are the norm. Heck, even an occasional ghostly sounding voice is the norm. Even me, Prince of Squeaks, Flat Notes and Out of Tune scare the socks off people with my singing more often than not. In fact, a laughing hyena gurgling on Listerine would have sounded like a Siren compared to me.
Naturally, I'm aware of my chart toppling ability to sing, so I don't usually accede to requests from my masochistic friends to join them at karaoke. At least not for the past six months, until yesterday.
Yesterday was, in a way, different. Partly because it was a belated birthday celebration and therefore an excuse for us boys to gather. Partly because we guys couldn't decide what to do.
We thought of watching a movie but there wasn't anything good on screen that one of us hadn't catch already. We thought of bowling or pool but there was some who objected. So we ended up at Esplanade . . . playing bridge.
Yup, very sad, I know. We just shifted from playing bridge at the void deck tables in our neighbourhood to playing bridge at a place more atas - the Esplanade. However, our emerging uncle nature didn't drop a bit. That was when the only un-uncle one among us, the only white collar professional among us suggested karaoke.
Hence, that was where we ended up. At a very ulu Party World branch in Chinatown tucked inside an eerie building, singing our hearts out and scaring the real ghouls away.