The other day, a troubled Muru, that is my colleague, left the office in a hurry. A monitor lizard had just invaded his home in Petaling Jaya.
Soon, I was imagining things — Muru wrestling with a hissing, clawing and biting six-foot reptile with forked tongue and lashing tail.
Amid the spectre of monstrous reptiles from a B-grade movie, the people in the NST office were speculating on Muru and the biawak’s fate.
There was even some morbid chatter that Muru, if he overcame the reptile, should cook it with curry or roast it.
I was more worried about both man and lizard, and hoping that no one got hurt.
Because of the El Nino phenomenon, which causes unusually hot weather, many reptiles have crept into cooler places like our homes in recent months.
Also, the habitats of snakes and monitor lizards are destroyed by construction and real-estate development, forcing them to move into humans’ homes.
A total of 3,708 cases of snakes caught in houses or buildings were recorded by the Malaysian Civil Defence Department in February nationwide, and for March, the figure was 3,780. The Fire and Rescue Department was called in for 899 cases in February and 973 cases in March.
Later, when Muru returned to the office, he was in one piece and I was relieved.
Next, I was concerned about the wellbeing of the monitor lizard, fearing that it was harmed or was killed.
But he said the drama had a happy ending after all. As the biawak had not grown to adult size, it was easier for Muru to overpower it, and he didn’t have to clobber the critter over the head with a stick or do something brutal like that.
Muru managed to put the biawak in a bag and got it out of the house. He didn’t take the easy way out by dumping the lizard by the roadside or into somebody’s backyard.
He went all the way to a riverbank, where he released the creature, and where it can live happily in its natural habitat.
What a kind fellow, this Muru.
The world, which is fraught with anger, hate and hostility, needs more people like him. And the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) should give him a medal.
A few years back, I was in Muru’s shoes. But it wasn’t about facing a monitor lizard — it was a rat.
I caught the rat after it had been raiding my kitchen for a week. Setting the trap was easy, but deciding how to kill the animal was the hard part. As it looked at me through the cage, it reminded me of “Jerry”.
How to kill the rat? I had thought of a few methods but they all seemed so cruel though I am no scaredy cat.
I could pour a pot of boiling water over the rodent and it would die instantly, but horrifyingly.
Or I could put the cage under the hot sun, but it would take a long time for it to die of thirst and starvation. Or I could just feed Jerry to the neighbour’s tomcat.
But that sounded barbaric, too. In the end, I got rid of the rat by putting it inside a thick polyethylene bag and throwing it into the back of a passing garbage truck.
Strange things have happened to me, and now, I live to tell you about it through this column.
Here is a bizarre one.
A decade back, something invaded my house and then my body. I was taking a shower at 3am before going to work when I felt or thought that some soapy water was flowing into my ear.
Later in the office, I sensed some movement inside my ear and I passed it off as the soapy water. But a stabbing pain shot through my head at 6am, leaving me in agony, and then it stopped.
While waiting for the NST medical clinic to open at 9am, I had breakfast with two colleagues at a warung. It was then that I felt something crawling out of my ear and I tilted my head.
My colleagues saw it first, turning their faces to me in horror and moving from their chairs. A centipede, with about a hundred legs, was coming out from my ear.
The centipede then dropped onto the table, scurrying between glasses of teh tarik and plates of roti canai, shocking a few customers.
For the sake of my sanity, it was fortunate that I didn’t know earlier that the “something inside my ear” was a centipede. If I had been aware of the creature inside me, I would go mad.
The experts say the public should keep the periphery of their houses clean to discourage reptiles from entering. And be alert of your environment, even when you are in the safety of your home.
The creepy-crawlies won’t knock on your door.
Chan Wai Kong is NST deputy sports editor. He sees life differently after waking up from a coma following a car accident in Vancouver