The guy with a knife...

Every morning I wake up to a stiff neck, cramped shoulders, aching back, and numb legs. That's the result of sleeping in the car for long period of time.

But this morning, besides the usual body ache, I woke up with a serious hip cramp, back spasm and numb feet. But that wasn't the worse case scenario. There was a man tapping on my car window loudy, so hard that he almost broke the window. I sat up as quickly as possible, and I saw a man standing just right next to the door.

I squinted, as it was dark. The moonlight penetrated through the leaves and that gave me enough light to make out the man standing there. He is about mid 30's, very tan (maybe some foreign workers, or some local guy), thin arms with veins probing out almost every inch of his arms. His eye whites were not white but brown yellowish, and it was bloodshot.

He tapped on my window loudly again, shouting nonchalantly. I just woke up, and I was still very dizzy, so I didn't catch what he was saying.

I rubbed my eyes again, and looked left and right. The streets was eerily quiet, not a single living soul from what I could see under the moonlight. The reflection of the moon shone brightly on the lake, and it was a sight to behold of. The lake, under the moonlight, was emitting a kind of aura that is both captivating and alluring. Unfortunately, it wasn't time to enjoy the scenery.

Something was not right.

He said something again, but I couldn't hear him. At first I thought of rolling down the car window a few inches more so that I could make out what he was saying, but I caught myself and I thought better of it. Then I saw his left hand was behind his back while his right hand tapping my window continuously.

Then I saw it. A glister, not a pretty sight that I was hoping for.

Apparently he was holding a knife with his left hand and he was hiding the knife from my view. He smiled at me, and the hair behind my back stood up as straight as army during national anthem.

Instead of rolling down the window, my instinct put me in auto-drive and I rolled up the window, started the car as fast as possible, put the gear in Reverse, and sped off.

While I was reversing away from him, I stole a few glances at him and saw that he was running towards me, knife no longer hidden. Cold sweat broke out from my face, and my palms became sweaty. But I didn't have the time to consider otherwise, so I continued reversing my car as far as possible before doing a U-turn and drove off.

What was he planning to do to me? Was he thinking of robbing me? Excuse me, I am not Einstein but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that I am homeless. Why would anyone wants to rob a homeless? Both are broke, so might as well go rob someone else. Or was he thinking of taking my car? That would be dreadful as my car is my precious and without it, it's like someone just chop off my legs and I will be handicap. Or was he planning something more sinister, like killing me? I don't know. I didn't want to find out, and I am not planning to go back and ask him politely if he was gonna rob me, take my car, or kill me.

Anyway, I was wide awake after that, failing to sleep for the rest of the night.

I will not go back to that place again.

But most importantly, very soon I will be having a place to stay. It is not confirmed yet, so I will only reveal more when it is time to do so.