A (0:05)

The Tiscu to Tasket. I trapped it in the basket. It laughed, it said. It wouldn't answer what I asked it. I nagged it and nagged it and nagged it and nagged it till it screamed out the answers to everything I asked it. You're listening to Spooked. Stay tuned. Now, I don't know about you, but for me, too often I feel like I'm walking through life, exhausted, sleep deprived. And of course, I know exactly why. Because my mind likes to play tricks. Wake me up at three in the morning with visions of the greatest story ever told. Bits, pieces, statues. And I know that the simple act of reaching for my phone to write this madness down, just a trickle of light in the darkness will mean several hours of staring at the ceiling, not sleeping. The next day will feel half lived. I also know that if I don't write the brilliance down this instant, the idea via storm will pass forever from my mind like smoke. Before, I would sacrifice sleep to chase these phantoms, but now, often I tell them, no, no, I just can't right now. But please, please, please, please revisit me at a decent hour and you will be welcome. I wave them off, understanding full well that these ideas, they are a fickle bunch. Moody, vengeful. And because I refuse to play by their rules, I know I will never hear from them again. Spook starts.

B (2:29)

Now.

A (3:19)

Life lessons. Life lessons. Dr. Ampton lives in Brunei on the island of Borneo. He and some of his colleagues are going to go on a work retreat. Things have gotten stressful in the office and it's time to get on the same page and bond as a team.

B (3:51)

The road becomes from loose gravel to mud, mud, clay. And it's at least three hours to drive. Off road. We had this government issue, Japanese off roaders. So we were in a convoy of those and we had fun drifting in the mud. It was like we were young again, set loose upon the world. There was this huge steep hill we had to drive up to and we needed to pick up speed. I said, come on. On the count of three, we're gonna shout Sparta. You know, just like in that movie 300. We're together, we're having fun. Whatever fights you've had before, that's forgotten. It was like all was forgiven, you know? We go to a place called Sukang. None of us had ever gone there before. And it's interesting because the village is always flooded because by the river bank, so all the houses are from the stilts. It's not just rural, but it's Deep rural. As someone who says, oh, I live in a tropical country, I have no idea until then what tropical rainforest is like. The trees as tall as buildings and a lot of butterflies, beautiful butterflies. The air is so much cooler. If I see an eagle soaring in the air, I just feel as though I've been chosen, you know, to have a good day. We were all excited. We even brought a karaoke set. A full, proper karaoke set. In Southeast Asia, karaoke is a must. Doesn't matter if I can sing well or not, I am singing. After about four hours, we got to the dock and took a five minute walk, boat ride to the clinic. The clinic is basically a wooden house, a large wooden house structure on the river. There are no parts where there's soil or land. There is no dock for the clinic. You basically had to get as close as you can and jump. We were shown where the hall was. This is where we're going to have our team activities, team building activities. The ladies were shown where the dorm was, where the sleeping quarters were. The guys were shown where our sleeping quarters was. Then straight ahead was the toilet. It was quite the distance actually. After we had unpacked, we do our orientation program. We have to take team building. One activity was there's some sort of rope that was put on the floor and we had to get across from one side to the other without getting off the rope. And you know, these things take quite some time. And I needed to pee really bad. I went out of the hallway and started walking. And the toilets are in the end and it's a long walk. I said, man, that's such a long way. And I wanted to get back into where all the fun was, you know, I didn't want to miss out. I had just had fun with my friends and I felt on top of the world. I felt uninhibited. And I thought, you know, since no one's here, everyone's busy in the hall. I'm just gonna pee into the. So that's what I did. As I was peeing into the water, I heard on my right side the voice of Dr. Zim, my colleague. He was literally standing by my side while I was peeing. He comes up right close to me and says, are you sure you want to do that? What if someone is down there? Meaning not a real person, but a spirit of some kind. There's something called chabul. It's like a set of conduct. When you enter the jungle, there's certain things you're not meant to say. There's Certain things you're not meant to do because otherwise it gives an excuse for spirits to come after you. He said that you're not supposed to pee into the water because you might be peeing onto a spirit. So I was a bit naughty. I didn't just pee there. I challenged it because that's what I do. I do my challenge. That's part of my tribal instinct. I'm a descendant of a Kadayan tribe. When Kadayan people enter the forest, they challenge the spirits. They say, I'm not afraid of you. Come on, come here. Part of their belief system is to keep the spirits in check. So I said, well, here's my golden shower. And I spat and I did a big loogie. I felt gung ho. I felt tough. I thought, I'm indestructible. So none of your spirits, if you exist here, can do anything about it, because I am who I am. So he left and I, you know, I went back into the hall and did my team building thing. After we had the orientation program, we decided to sing. You gotta sing American Pie, right? I can still remember how that music used to make me smile. And I knew if I had my chance, then I could make those people death. It's such an easy song to sing, and everyone joins in the chorus. We were screaming to the top of our voices, you know, bye, bye, Miss American Pie. Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry. There was no drinking alcohols prohibited in Brunoi. But we had a lot of fun. After we finished singing, it was time for bed. Most of them were bunk beds. I grabbed one that was near a window and near the door. Usually I sleep well, but that night I was woken up around 2am what woke me up was this loud thumping sound underneath the boom, boom, boom, boom. I thought, what is that? It was very eerie. I thought, maybe it's the boat. The boat was tied to the stilted building, so wooden stills and this water everywhere below. I thought, I'm just going to ignore it. I noticed, you know, the window was frosted, but I could see a black shadow moving to and fro from one end to the other. It was passing by the window and then back again. And then something was moving past the gap between the door and the floor. And when I looked under, I saw tiny feet. No, no, no, no. That's just your mind playing games. You're in the jungle. You're tired. But I'm sure it's your feet. One pair of feet moving fast by the door. And Passing again, just like the window. I was really scared. I said, hey, anyone awake? Hello? Hello? I have a pretty loud voice and no one woke up. And I thought, what am I gonna do? So I thought, I'm gonna get out of the room and walk towards the hall, the main hall. I thought it just made sense that I should be with people who was awake. It's like a long balustrade to get to the hallway. When I got out, I felt there was someone behind me. And not just someone behind me, but I felt someone was clinging to my back, like piggybacking, like a backpack, but with hands. Usually I would say, I'm going to turn around and look at you, and you know, if I see something, I'm gonna punch you. But here I thought if I saw it, whatever it was, I'm going to die on the spot. Because I was so scared. My heart was pounding, I was sweating, I was trembling. I wondered if I was having a stroke. I didn't dare turn around. I tried saying some holy verses from the Quran, but I was just gibberish. So I just said, okay, I'm gonna look down on my feet and just keep walking towards the hall. When I got into the hall, I'm trying to find someone else who's awake. If I'm with someone else, we can confront anything. But if I'm alone, you know, and something happens to me, no one's going to avenge my death. No one's going to be able to tell what actually happened. When I went into the hall, I saw the team leader. He was asleep. And I tried to wake him up and was just sleeping, fast asleep. I got so upset and I said, you're supposed to be psychiatric nurse. You're supposed to be able to wake up when there's an emergency. And he didn't wake up. So I thought, gosh, what am I gonna do? I thought, there's no way I'm gonna sleep here because the door is open and it's huge. There's less people. I thought I'd be safer in numbers. So I made the option of going back towards the bedroom. And the moment I got back out there, you know, I felt the same thing. I felt something was there. At that moment. I saw the water disappear. It vanished. The water vanished and I saw all the vegetation underneath. I saw the boat on the actual mud, on the actual soil when it was just supposed to be floating. All the houses are still there on the stilts. The trees are still there, but the water is all gone. It's like something Someone drained it all away instantly. I thought, no, no, that can't be. So what I did is closed my eyes and I said holy mantra inside my heart. I opened my eyes and the water was still gone. It was completely gone. Whatever can make water disappear must be more powerful than you can imagine. I had only one thing to do, which was to run back into the bedroom, sliding into the door and just slamming the door. And then I jumped into the bunk bed. I thought, what? What was that? What the hell was that? I wanted to switch on the lights, but I was so scared that the moment I put my feet ground on the floor, something from underneath my bed would drag me into somehow into the water down below. So at that time, I had this brand new Japanese flashlight, indestructible. I switched it on, pointed it at a wall, and I just focused on that. After five minutes, I said, all I have to do is wait till dawn. And it was at that moment the brand new flashlight died. And that's when I went into further panic. I was sweating buckets. I gotta do something or I'm gonna die here. I thought if something appeared in front of me suddenly, I would just collapse. And the worst thing was that if I died there, people would say he just had a heart attack. He was smoking, you know, he had too much fun there. No one would say he died there because spirit killed him or he died of shock. I was so scared. Eventually I mustered the courage. I jumped out of the bed and just punched the lights. I started shouting at everyone, wake up, wake up everyone. And everyone was fast asleep. So there was this guy in front of me. He's actually a urologist. He was somewhere in la la land and dreaming happily in a blissful sleep. I thought, no matter what happens, I'm gonna wake him up. It could be one of these things that he'll never forgive me for, but this is do or die. So I slapped him hard. His face kind of shook and he woke. And I had to say to him, look, look, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And I know this sounds crazy, but I think there's something here. It surprisingly, he didn't fight with me. That's the thing that surprised me, how calm he was. He believed me. He said, okay, let's go to the hall and we'll sleep there. He actually brought me to the hall, read some holy verses for me, and waited for me to sleep. The next day I woke up disheveled and everyone saw me. It was so embarrassing. You know, it's not nice for everyone to see you in the middle of the hall to find you sleeping and snoring for the rest of the day. I did my best to participate in the exercises, the team building activities, but in the back of my mind, I was thinking, oh, my God, what had just happened? How could this happen? At the same time, I don't want people to know I peed into the world. I didn't want people to know that I broke a code of conduct with the spirits. But I came up to Dr. Zimbabwe. I said, you know, I should have listened to you. And he said, what are you talking about? You know, about your warning not to pee into the water below. He said, what are you talking about? You peed in the water. Why would you do that? At the time, I just. I didn't say anything else because I wasn't sure if he's pulling a long one. But at the same time, I was thinking, I think he's telling me the truth. I don't think he was the one who told me not to pee in the water. And then I realized that I didn't actually see his face. I did not see Dr. Zim's face. All I just saw was that he was beside me. I never saw his face. I thought that must have been something else that was telling me not to pee into the water. I think it was the spirit itself was warning me. It must have been the spirit that I pissed off. Literally. I know now, in the jungle, a proper jungle, deep jungle, you respect. You respect the unseen. I shared this story with a friend of mine who's actually a spiritual master. He said that the spirits wanted to send me a warning. I was in a state of. It's like a dream state, but it's a dream state that's been conjured by the spirits. So that's why I couldn't wake anyone up. Until I decided to slap my urologist friend. That was the only thing that broke the spell. And now when I, you know, before I do a challenge, I said, do I really want to do this? A few months ago, in my clinic upstairs, there's. There's a particular room that's got no windows. And my staff have seen something there. Every time I go to that room, I know there's something there. I get goosebumps. And I basically shouted, don't you dare. Don't you dare show up to me. I'll beat the F out of you. And as they're saying that, I was just thinking, oh, man, don't do this. Don't challenge it. But you gotta show that you are stronger willed than you actually are. Like how a cat puffs up its fur. You know, we're humans. We never learn.