The Voice of the Omniscient Editor-in-Chief (October 09)

October used to be one of my favourite months. It is the end of the asphyxiating summer heat (in Europe, where there is practically no air-conditioning, summer is the least pleasant season). It is the month where the trees turn yellow and gold, and the sky takes on this eternal death pall that slows down the functioning of the brain. It was my favourite month because Halloween or All Saints’ (Souls’) Day falls on October 31st. Thanks to popular American culture, we now know what the day is all about. And yet the American portrayal of Halloween, with its inevitable commercialism and farce, does not reflect the original spirit of the occasion. The ancient Celts “celebrated” Halloween because it was the end of harvesting and livestock had to be slaughtered for winter stores. On this night it was also believed that the boundary between the living and the dead worlds would be lifted, and for a few hours, the dead would be free to roam the earth and be a nuisance to the living. It was a night of caution and prudence. The last thing you would find is parents letting their precious little ones go trick-or-treating in the night.
    This sort of mythical horror has lost its solemnity in our age where real horror is played out on TV and computer screens. Imaginary horror can never compete with actual human atrocities. This is where I get nostalgic. I wish we could revert to a time when horror was domesticated and contained. I wish we could get back some of that innocence which we had lost in our quest for knowledge.
    That is precisely the goal of the October issue – to get back those chills down the spine when faced with imagined horror. But not all is horror. There is Pratik reflecting on his KLIMUN experience. There are the usual laments of love. There are also creative works of fiction.
Of course, all would have been for naught without our contributors: Geraldine, Lewis, Firdaus, Pratik, Yati, Azhar, Vivian, Sheril, Afandi and Fatin. If your piece does not appear here, don’t worry, it will be in the next issue!
Have a spooky fun time with this one. Be good to yourself and each other.                           

Edward Ong, October 09                                                    
To quote our beloved Editor-in-Chief, October will all be about ghosts, ghosts and ghosts! The mere thought of it sends chills up across my spine (especially since I’m writing this in the dead of the night while alone in my room).  I must admit that I am not the type of person who can handle a horror flick. The image of a hollow white figure from Halloween H20 still lingers in my memory and refuses to leave me be after all these years! I cannot however help but wonder why we like the things that scare us most. Just look at the movie list in your local cinema and sure enough there will be at least one horror movie playing every month.
For some it is the thrill of watching such movies that cultivates their love for horror. Horror movies give the audience a sensation of vulnerability. In watching a horror movie the audience allows themselves to be exposed to unknown and mysterious realms where anything is possible (not in a good way, I might add). But perhaps it is fear of the unknown which gives us the most exhilaration.
Asian cultures have always been fascinated by the paranormal – think Hungry Ghost Festival, pontianaks and the like. More often than not it is the cultural belief which introduces the concept of spirits to us. Our elders have often used the paranormal as a means to teach children. They would inculcate fear within us by saying spirits will haunt us if we misbehaved. So the question now is do ghosts really exist the way we imagine them to be? Could supernatural beings truly exist in our world? Or is all of it a mere fabrication of the mind? It’s a mystery, no?
Azam Ismail
Deputy Editor

When this month’s theme – the Supernatural – was first released, it reminded me of the myriad of ghost stories that I have been audience to as a child. There were those about headless ones, bloody ones, about those that prowl hotels at night, those that roam in daylight invisible to the healthy eye – stories with such realism, told by people with so much conviction, that I wholeheartedly believed. Now I’m too old to convince myself of the existence of a dimension I had yet to have experience with, and it’s been too long since the last ghost story, I thought. Yet sometimes I catch myself being scared: those were genuine chills that washed over me that night when I learnt that it was the Hungry Ghost Month. I had then proceeded to rush into bedtime, like a spooked child running for his mother. So much for age.
Fear grows in darkness, and as long as this darkness on the Supernatural remains, there will be always reason to fear. I had been too lazy to switch on my lights, to confront my uncertainties, and let them upset me when I least expect it.
It will be interesting to see how our contributors shed light on the topic. It is wonderful to see that OM has been celebrating new voices issue after issue; and also much thanks to the incumbents for never budging from their spots.
                                                                                Eileen Cham
                                                                                Associate Editor