hello darling... let's play creepy!

“Halu sayang... kamu dimana?”

The voice on the phone startled me, not so much for the unsettling intimacy of what it said as for its tone and timbre. The unfamiliar, gravelly drawl instantly conjured a Romy Diaz-isque mustache and a mean streak. I was so taken aback that I wasn’t able to answer right away. The man on the other end carried on before I stammered a confused “Who’s this?” He mumbled something, and I could hear muffled conversations in the background, but that voice—and the undertone of viciousness it carried—was so disturbing that I cancelled the call right away. He rang again twice but I ignored both calls and went right on with what I was doing at work.

But it nagged at me—that call, that voice. That drunken-sounding drawl. That hint of menace it held.

Now I am used to getting strange calls. In Indonesia, you can’t keep your mobile number private. A phone number is almost like a passport here, only much more in demand. You need to present it on practically every occasion—for taxi service, food delivery, credit card verification, airline booking—everything that makes life more convenient. You don’t even have to give your name, just your number, and everything clicks into place in some computer system somewhere. So the question “Who has my number?” is redundant. In this here place, everybody has it.

Yet that call unsettled me. That voice. It made the use of the endearment sayang (darling, love) sound like a threat, sending a chill down my spine. And I am not one to get easily spooked, either!

“Lock all your doors,” the brother admonished. “Make it a habit every time you go in and out of your house.”

“Get a mace or a pepper spray!” The sister advised.

It could just be that living alone has turned me into a jumpy wussy, especially when every living taxi and ojek driver who had ever driven me home would always make a fine point of asking:

“Are you living alone?”

Now why the hell would anyone in their right mind ask that of a female passenger? This kind of question should be outlawed. It’s another form of harassment! There was even one taxi driver who did not leave right away after I alighted from his cab. He just stayed there outside the gate, engine idling, until I closed the door. Imagine my fright when the next time I took a cab home at night and gave directions, the driver said: “I know the place, I know where you live.”

It was the same driver.

What are the odds of flagging the same cab twice in a city? Well, it happened. And when I quizzed him, it appeared I’ve been a passenger in his cab three frigging times! The first was a pick up, meaning I ordered from his company. When we were nearing my place, he admitted he had waited that other time to make sure that I got into the house safely. And then the dreaded question: “Are you living alone? Is your husband with you?” WTF! I would have admitted to cohabiting with two husbands and three boyfriends, so shaken up was I by the whole thing.

So perhaps it wasn’t such a surprise that I would be unnerved by the strange caller with the sinister voice. Then again, it could just be a wrong number; or a prankster… happens all the time.

Until he called again last night. That voice. Again. Asking another question in Bahasa Indonesia.

“Hello, darling. Where is the rest of what you promised?”

This time I asked firmly who was calling. He answered in that gravelly, oily, menacing drawl:

“Oh, but have you forgotten me already, darling?”

That was it. I refused to cower. I enunciated my words carefully in the same language:

“I am going to call the police.”

“What?”

“I am going to tell the police,” I repeated.

Silence.

I cancelled the call and waited, heart racing. My phone didn’t ring a second time. I breathed a sigh of relief, blocked the freaking number, and started sending a message to tell the siblings about what just happened.

Suddenly, I heard that same baleful voice speaking in normal tones to someone outside—just across my house! Was that really the same voice? Then again my nerves could be so frayed that I was beginning to imagine things! It was highly improbable that a malicious breather would suddenly be yapping about mundane stuff right outside your bedroom window. That was it. It was just my overactive imagination playing cheap tricks on me. Still, I double checked all the locks, kept the all the lights in the living room on, and slept with a rusty hammer under my pillow. Yes, I was turning into a dingbat chickenshit.

This morning, I told my colleagues about the caller. They cautioned me to be careful and to not talk to strangers. Someone kindly pointed out the current headline about the woman living alone who was found strangled in her bed. “It might have something to do with her job, though—she was a sex worker, murdered for offending her killer by calling him smelly.”

Well, that was certainly comforting.

There was actually not much point in being too spooked. My neighbors are so close I could hear their beds being dragged at night and the sound of their faucet running! I live just a corner away from the guards. The complex is well-lit. After telling my friends about the weird calls, I felt better about everything, less uneasy. Nonetheless, I took an ojek from work this afternoon, just to have someone with me when I went home, you know. The driver was a familiar, friendly face. He said thank you when I paid him, beamed, and blurted: “Ms, you living alone?”

Ah,the hell with it!