So it happens, that Cecil’s owl has just flown into Singapore from the North but Cecil himself has left Singapore for the North. Meanwhile, his self appointed glucose guardian @naturalcurries is only keen to provide a bus ticket for him to travel back for the bird.
Everyone, a moment of silence for Cecil’s FOMO please.
And so, it also happens that there are some more stories surrounding the howling infant. Except for the first, the latter two are serendipitous (I did not specifically dig for them). All confirm that finding babies crying in the woods are not uncommon local events. As to who or what they really are, why they appear and cry – these questions remain unanswered. Without further fanfare, I present thee with…
The security office’s testimony:
Weeks after our owling expedition, I returned to the transmission tower to check out a raptor’s eyrie because it was nesting season. A guard came out to speak to me after noticing my presence. Just last night, the nest, he said, had fallen from a storm and someone called Acres to rescue a baby white bellied sea eagle. I took the opportunity to ask if he had ever heard those strange baby wails we heard that night. He looked non-plussed, and, with a very matter-of-fact tone, said “Oh that’s just the Japanese child. Ever since the incident…we hear those cries…many things happen here…sometimes there’s a car horn sounding in the forest around 3 am and when we go there, there’s no car at all…We get used to it…”
The ranger’s story:
One of my favourite things to do at my favourite nature reserve is to chat with my favourite ranger. I shall name him T. T, a most jovial fellow, is never seen without his wide brimmed hat. T also had stories. When he was speaking of his encounters during a conversation at dusk, he mentioned one he said he shall save for better light. “I didn’t want to talk about that one too late because it happened here…you know what they say it’s not good to talk about these things too late…It happened that one night, I heard it after a rainstorm. A baby was crying in the nature reserve… There’s a creature that sounds like a crying baby. It is common. And we have a name for it…(but he never mentions this name …). Well, it’s best left alone when you hear this cry. Don’t go looking for it.” (His nature reserve is a stone’s throw from our forest)
The Private-Hire Driver’s tale:
He was a retired chemical engineer for a German firm. Eloquent and a gentle soul, it was a most enjoyable ride home (stories as a bonus of course). “Let me think…oh yes, there was once this lady, just like you, she told me she heard a baby crying in the forested area next to her condo (exact same forest as ours, coincidences of coincidences?) It was already 1 or 2 am, but she was curious, and went to investigate. There she saw a woman’s silhouette in the trees…aiyo… she said that lady looked like she was wearing a sari… an Indian lady… and she assumed that she was carrying the baby in her arms…So brave you know! I wouldn’t go near if I heard anything like that!”
Anthropologists have a concept and a name for “the betwixt and between” (of which Gaiman is undoubtedly a grandmaster). Every anthro-first-year gets acquainted with ‘liminality’…twilight is a liminal time; hotel rooms, corridors and purgatory are liminal spaces; teenagers are liminal people; shamans, ghosts and zombies are liminal beings…you get it?
Some anthropologists spend entire careers chasing down the liminal in their own ways. It is an intriguing space, especially when located in the shadow world between the living and the dead, the natural and the divine. Jacks, our anthro-of-religion lecturer, could attest to this, because he chose to specialise in Siberian shamanism and crowded our fresh first year minds with videos after videos of Balinese trances, sacrifices and rituals.
The liminal is not unfamiliar to me. Can I count this howling infant as a one of those experiences? Perhaps. That time-frozen confrontation with the “hello” baby still remains in my memory clear as day. Nevertheless, shivers-down-spines, hairs-on-skin spookiness does not come close to the core-melting, heart-peering over-precipice doom one faces preparing to stand in front of one’s Creator. It’s been a while, but these days, I find myself longing for that soul-bungee into the infinite where only grace awaits after loving judgment.