Ghosts In The Field

While attached to St.Andrew Estate,Batang Berjuntai,Selangor I had men's night outing with a friend from a neighboring plantation.We attended a dinner party with a group of friends from Kuala Lumpur.

That evening all of us had one drink too many and were half drunk.True enough we truly had a jolly good time drinking.I had not drank so much before but that night was an exceptional happy occasion.Initially I did not touch any liqueur but as the night went on with good dishes of food coming out from the kitchen, slowly by and by I began drinking a bit at first then on hell broke lose.

Very unfortunate I was already drunk half way through,my friend too drank but he was alright.One thing when you have a drink too many you tend to lose your balance and continue to down more and pegs of whisky and brandy - worst still - mixed.

The proprietress of the restaurant and friends from adjacent table also joined in the fun with us and everyone went wild.That proprietress joined us in the drinking driving all of us crazy.Finally it was all over by twelve o'clock but we dared not drive home that very moment,so we rested at another restaurant with a cup of warm tea each.

We only began our journey home when I was sober sufficient to drive.So I drove slowly home that night.We had no trouble along the way until we came almost near to town.That stretch of straight road on its left was another friend's plantation (Java Selangor Estate) while the right was a huge drain next to some small holders.

As I drove on my friend who was by my side suddenly shouted frantically at me,"Look,lights floating in the field".I took a glance at the direction he pointed.Sure enough there were lights,the size of a tennis ball floating around.Astonished with fright we looked on straight at them.

We were afraid because these could be ghosts roaming outside as it was already 2.00 a.m. in the morning.We were too scared to stop to investigate so I drove on.Further down the road we noticed a light just ahead of us again near the road but we were no more afraid as they was a figure of a tapper with a head light on.

Well.shame on us,tappers from that plantation had already started tapping rubber so early in the morning and we were still out or just returning home from our outing.

So those lights never were ghosts but lights of tappers tapping rubber.Crazy ain't it so? But it is true my friend in that plantation had induced its tappers to tap so early so as to extract a better yield from their field.Just imagine at that hour of the morning.It really was craaazy.