THE THIRD EYE

by: RUSSELL LEE

Policewoman, 35

      I once had a neighbour who lived in the HDB unit

next to ours. He was a very strange guy, who helped

out at the coffee xhop nearby. He had crewcut hair, a

wrinkled face, a very large head with protruding eyes

and a big oily mouth just like the character in the movie

E.T. I had always thought he looked extremely ugly.

      He not looked weird but also acted like an alien. He

did not much. He had this queer habit of looking at you as

If you were his enemy. He might look at you with another

expression another time, as if you were an out-of-the-way,

Ultra-special specimen, or as if you just weren’t there at all.

He was the kind you would avoid at first glance, thingking

he was insane.

      My sisters and I sometimes laughed at him. He did not

seem to dislike us for that, and we thought he didn’t

notice. But an elderly man caught us giggling at him. He

sternly told us to respect our neighbour. He tolde us JK, the

neighbour, could see ghosts.

      JK, he said, was born with the third eye, in the way of the

three-eyed god,Erlang Shen. JK could see the world not

meant for mortals. It was more of a curse than a blessing , for

such an ability not only tormented thee life of the person,

making it totally fearful and depressing, but also shortened

his life-span.Such chosen ones die young said the elderly man.

     Sure enough, JK died a few months later. Those who attended

his funeral. Held at the void deck of our block, whispered that he

was only twenty-nine at the time. I was astounded when I heard it,

for JK appeared much, much older. It was also that he died of natural

causes which didn’t soound at all natural to me, since he was not

so old.

      And there countless visitors discussing his special power. JK could see

ghosts clinging to certain places and persons, he could see if a location

was under spiritual influences, or if certain illnesses were due to the

Influence of harmful spirits.

      It was uncomfortable for me to suddenly hear that the person I so

despised actuallky possessed some sort of extrasensory power. It

futher gave me the creeps to hear my friend tell me: Oy, do you recall

he always had this thing about your pot of fasmine? He kept gazing

at it.

     I gave the pot away the next day.