And here i was, thinking: how could the evening get any better?

It just got worse. Freakishly so.

After a great meal at the new Elements in Frazer Town and buying each other birthday presents, N and i headed back to her place so that i could pick up my bike and ride home. The time was 11 p.m. Not usually the time i ride back home, but somehow, the gorgeous weather soothed my usually wary nerves and led me to ride into the balmy winds.

I overtook a few people on the road (for obvious reasons; they were going too slow) but there was this one chap on a bike that i must have passed by when i was nearing home - about half a kilometre away, is my estimate.

Imagine a rectangle - my house is at the top left hand corner of the rectangle. The right side of the rectangle leads to my house as well, but i usually take the left side of the rectangle to reach my house when i'm coming from the main road, which is almost always. When i took the left turn, the guy honked twice. I didn't think much of it and looked at him curiously to wonder why he was honking. I stopped in front of my gate, got off the bike to open the gates and park inside. Somehow, instinctively, i sent up a prayer to God saying God please, please don't let him turn the right corner and see where i live.

God must have been on a break then, because the biker took the turn and was on the same road as me. He approached my house, slowing down in front of it and observing my movements. I felt the beginnings of anxiety. He went away, and i parked my bike inside. As i was removing the bags and other paraphernalia from my bike, he circled the house a second time, slowing down in front of my gate again and observing me. By now, i was quite afraid. Then, he did it a third time. That was it; i was petrified. I locked the gate as soon as i could and with my three bags and a doggy bag from dinner, i scooted up the stairs to the safety of my home.

Just outside the door, i realised that i had left the bike keys on the bike.

I stood for a full minute outside the door, really, really scared to go back downstairs just in case the biker decided to come again. So i rung the bell, waited for my dad to come, asked him to stay put there, dumped all my luggage, ran down the stairs, grabbed the keys from the bike and ran back up. My heart still hasn't stopped racing from fear.

These things usually don't happen. I never ride as late as 11 in the night, and even if i do, it's never alone - A is almost always following me on his Bullet when i insist on riding back home. Today, though, things were different. With hardly three kilometres between N's and my place, it took me less than 10 minutes to cover the distance on fairly traffic-free roads. And yet, yet this shit happened.

Ugh. These things shake up my equilibrium, destroy my feeling that all is okay with the world. It's a reality bite that i can do without because now, it's going to take a good number of days for this fear to go away.