God's gonna cut you down...

Let me apologise for the sombre mood I’m about to create just hours before CNY. If you don’t want to get your mood severely dampened, I suggest u click the cross on the top right corner of your screen right now. For I don’t want to be blamed for spoiling your festive mood.

I drove to school for the first time, the day after Valentine’s day, as I promised my Korean and Taiwanese friends a treat after school. My American friend came along to, for he was the one who set the so called ‘date’ up.

The day started like any other, with a monotonous GP lesson where I learnt absolutely nothing at all. After which, Jon came over and asked me for help. I won’t go into details as to what, but he wasn’t in the best mood that day. So I looked at my timetable and decided to skip classes for the first time because the next 2 subjects were fairly routine.

We decided to go to Holland Village to pick something up for him and have breakfast before coming back to school. So I drove as usual and exited the carpark without any hassle. As I entered Bukit Timah Road, I saw ahead of me a massive traffic jam.

Instinctively, I cursed.

I would live to regret swearing later.

There shouldn’t be so many cars at this time of the day I thought. Must be some stupid roadworks or bottleneck or spoilt traffic lights ahead.

I have to admit I’m a very impatient driver, and I love to power my Civic into empty spaces to dodge traffic, but there was simply too many cars to do so. Rather grumpily, I inched forward, with my loud music at the background adding to the already tense atmosphere. Jon swore too, as we were running a tight schedule to be in time for classes later.

Eventually, I arrived at the head of the queue and saw 2 traffic police motorcycles beside a broken down car. Bloody hell, all this traffic just because of a stupid broken car? Why don’t they just tow it away or move it to the side instead of letting it occupy the 2 lanes?

Then, I noticed something peculiar, there were a lot of people standing at the pavement just staring at the car, some with shocked faces. One uncle had his arms over his head. I looked intently at the car again, and saw no one inside.

I shrugged it off: ‘Damn kaypoh Singaporeans, nothing better to do than to stare at a broken car’.

The road was clear ahead after the car, and I finally heaved a huge sigh of relief at the end of the massive jam.

I was about to jam on my accelerator, when I saw probably the saddest scene of my entire life.

As the car’s side was facing me ahead, I initially couldn’t see what was beyond it as its body was blocking my view.

How I wished I sped off at that moment, because a motionless body was laying there, with a white sheet covered over it.

A pair of feet was sticking out because the wind was rather strong, and I could see a pool of blood. I couldn’t make out whether it was a male or a female, but I saw more than what I hoped to see because of the wind.

I was caught up by the moment. There it was, barely 5 meters away from me, a dead body.
Immediately I pictured someone probably happily crossing the road without a care in the world, the next, a life suddenly cut short.

I don’t know that person, but grief gripped me for I imagined the family of the victim.

Imagine picking up a call and hearing: “Your mother just died from an accident, I’m sorry”.

It’s totally different from reading it in the papers and actually seeing the aftermath of a fatal accident with your own two eyes. A flurry of thoughts raced through my mind. Who was at fault? The victim who chose to cross the road despite having an overhead bridge barely 20 metres away? Or the driver of the Mazda who was probably speeding along the normally deserted road, not expecting someone to dash across the road?

Guess it doesn’t really matter now.

What matters is that a life was lost and many more shattered as a result. I wondered if it was me, i’ll probably be speeding as well, taking things for granted.

I’ve come to realise something, often in life, we thread a very fine line. It is so darn easy to get on the wrong side of the line, and when we do, will result in dire consequences that we would never ever imagine.

I guess it was God’s will for me to experience the accident. It was a wake up call for me. And if you are reading this, it is God’ will for you to wake up as well. If we have been living a life without a care in the world, doing things without giving second thoughts, now is a good time to ponder.

It all boils down to one thing:

In every little thing we do, there is a cause and effect.

No matter how tiny and small the action is, the effect can be multiplied by a hundred.

Life is fragile, we can be having the time of our lives one day, dead the next because of someone’s actions.

There is nothing we can do about it, for this is how the world works.

I uttered a quick prayer when I passed the body, hoping for the soul to rest in peace.

I guess that scene will forever be embedded in my mind, and it still sends me the chills as I’m typing this.

That affected my mood for the rest of the day, as I have never seen such a gruesome accident in my life.

As fate will have it, apparently God wasn’t done with me. On my way home along Ferrer Rd, there was another massive jam on the opposite side of the road, although mine was clear.

I dismissed it as the peak hour traffic and drove on. What are the chances of seeing 2 accidents within a day? Furthermore, I haven’t see one in my 23 years of my life until that day! I must be crazy to even contemplate such a possibility.

However, my curious side got the better of me and I couldn’t help but peer on my right, hoping to catch a glimpse beyond the bushes on the divider.

So far so good I thought, just the peak hour traffic.

Then, I saw the last thing I wanted to see that day. Another accident.

A motorcycle was UNDERNEATH a lorry.
No bodies and I couldn’t bear to look on. One was enough. I knew if I did, I would probably have pulled my car on the road side and cried.

I just sold my motorcycle last week and I’m glad I did for it could so easily been my motorcycle underneath that lorry.

I shuddered at that thought.

The first accident scene happened on the road that my bus home will travel on everyday.

The journey home will never been the same again.

God bless the victims and their families.

Condolences from,
alvin