How could it BE?

I'm so freaking shocked.

Someone died in a condominium last night, around 8 something.

You ask, how could I be so shocked? People die everyday. And some died in condos, too.

Well, let me tell you this: the poor man died in the very condominium I lived in.

It wasn't a murder or suicide act, if that's what you're thinking. It was more of an accident. This 64 year-old man was having a swim in the the calm serenity of the pool in the night when(no-one really knows what happened) he drowned. Mum thinks that he might have had a heart attack.

I should know. I saw his body.

It happened like this.

19th March, Friday, 9 p.m.

It started out pretty normal. Dad closed the shop, Mum decided where to go for nighttime tea, and I just followed along. We went to Penang Kopitiam's, in Parkson. After the last drop of coffee was glugged down, we went for home.

Little did we know what we would find there.

It was a normal drive home. Mum and Dad discussed the house they bought in Taman Skyline and I either sat in monotonous silence or tried to interrupt their endless discussions.

As the security guard at the gate let Dad in, I noticed flashing lights just opposite the kiddie playground. I looked closer and saw a bunch of policemen and the condo guards huddled closely together. They appeared to be talking.

"Mum, what's happening?" I asked.

"We'll find out later," she answered.

We went a little way in the parking lot to find the path we had to cross to park our car blocked by chairs.

"Want to find out what happened?" Dad asked.

"Yeah!" Mum and I answered together.

"Well, hop out. I'll join you later." said Dad, and he unlocked our doors. We were out like a streak of lightning.

As Mum and I hustled to the steps that led outdoors into the playground, I saw that the flashing lights belonged to an ambulance. People were clustered on the sidewalk. Moaning pierced the night air like claws. I could just see a stretcher with wheels lying on the ground, with someone draped in a white cloth lying on it.

Mum gasped. We caught up with a man dressed in green on the steps. Mum asked him what happened.

"Dead." the man answered grimly.

Dead?

"No way!" I whispered to myself. Then a woman kneeling next to the stretcher shifted, and I saw the dead man's face clearly.

He seemed to be sleeping. His aged face was pale, and he had a mane of grey hair. My shock and fear grew.

Dad's face popped out over the parking balcony.

'' What's happened?" he said.

"He's dead!" my mum replied. "Drowned!"

"What?!"

My mum explained as much as she knew, but I wasn't listening. I felt numbed, shocked, fearful.

We went back to our apartment. My parents were talking about the dead man, but I didn't say anything. There wasn't much to say anyway.

It's so weird. At first the day seems normal, if not boring. And then, out of the blue, it leaps at you. Someone drowns in the very place you stay. And you're numbed with shock.

It just tells me that life is unpredictable, a mystery. Who knows what you might find in the next corner?