Witness

I have been working as a bus driver for twelve years. Normally, I handle the late shift and would go home late in the night. I remembered that once I had a strange encounter on my way home. It happened on a Saturday night... I was on my way home as usual. When I walked out of the lift into my floor, a gust of cold wind swept past me. I looked to my right and saw a young girl in a white dress, sitting on the staircase. It struck me as strange that she was not at home at this time of the night. Her face was wet and her eyes were red. She seemed to be crying.

I was concerned and went up to her. 'Little girl, why are you sitting here alone?' She kept quiet and pulled herself closer. 'Why, little girl, tell uncle. Maybe I can help.' She looked up at me with such mournful eyes. 'My parents don't love me. My mother don't care, and my father don't even talk to me anymore.' 'Oh, why? Have you done anything to make them angry with you?' 'I don't know. They don't care about me anymore.'Why, you don't know? All parents love their children, no matter how angry they are with their children. There must be a reason. Have you ask them why?' 'No, I'm afraid to.' 'Little girl, you have to understand. Your parents are very busy people. They have to work very hard, so by the time they come home, they are already tired. It does not mean that they don't love you when they don't talk to you.' 'Really, uncle?'

'Yes, when they don't talk to you, you go and talk to them, okay? So don't cry. Come, let me take you home.' 'Okay, Thank you, uncle.' She got up from the steps, and told me where she stayed. She lived three floors above me. When we were almost at her door, she turned to me. 'Uncle, thank you for sending me back. I can go home on my own now.' Believing that she would be fine, I turned to leave. When I went down the stairs to my apartment, I saw a gold bracelet lying there on the step where she sat. 'The girl must have forgot the bracelet and left it behind,' I thought. Since it was late, I planned to returned it to the girl the next day. The next morning, I knocked on the door. A man, in his early thirties, opened the door. 'Yes, what do you want?' The man asked suspiciously. 'I think your daughter dropped her bracelet yesterday. Anyway, here is it.' I passed the bracelet to him.

'My daughter?' Incredulous, he looked at the bracelet closely. After a while, he said no more nut invited me into the house, giving me a weird look. There was no sign of the young girl in the house. 'Hello, madam. Where is the little girl? Gone to school, is it?' I smiled at the wife, who had just came out from the kitchen. The man showed the bracelet to his wife, whose eyes widened. Shortly after, she burst into tears. 'My wife and I have no children.' The man said flatly. 'But the little girl told me that you are her parents. Come on lah, your little kid is so young. Don't disown her.' 'We used to have a daughter...' The man said. 'If you want to punish her, just scold her. You should not disown the poor girl. She was heart broken, crying so pitifully on the stairs last night.' 'She died five years ago.' 'What?' I looked at him, stunned.

He showed me her photo, and there it was, a smiling portrait of the girl I saw last night. My blood ran cold. 'What did she tell you?' 'She said that you don't talk to her anymore, and that you don't love her anymore. But I saw her to your door last night.' 'She's probably upset that we did not visit her grave on her anniversary this year. My poor daughter.' The wife broke in, her voice full of sadness. 'We were held up overseas, and could not make it back in time.' The man said sadly. 'Since we got back, we were so busy with our work that we forgot to visit her.' Soon, the couple were on their way to their daughter's grave. The bracelet, they claimed, was the very same one their daughter wore when they buried her.