Yeah yeah, I know I haven't wrote on here for some time...... but seriously I'm not in a mood to update you guys on every little gritty bit of detail in my life. So I guess I'll just pick an incident that occurred that I thought was....oh well, you be the judge. Besides, I'm hoping this'll help get my writing muse up and running. Just so happens that this transpired yesterday......
I've been taking cabs lately, sometimes to but mostly from work. No, that's not the incident.........
It's mostly due to work, taking cabs tends to ease the stress off. Especially when I got a good convo going with a complete stranger. That ain't the incident either, though I realize how this could be news to you.
So, I was assigned the job of picking my mom up from my relative's house sometime in the evening, but she wasn't clear on the time. Not that my mom couldn't get home by herself, it's just that well, you know how it is when you're attending a function at your relative's place. They'll definitely bagging foodstuffs for you to bring home. No? Well, I don't sympathize with you either way. Besides there were also around 50 plastic trays, some Tupperware tumblers and containers that my cousin had already shifted transported there a few days back that needed some transporting back. And though my mom's still quite a fit woman given her age, lugging those things around when you're going to travel from the west side of Singapore to the east side is quite a thing to ask of.
Long story short, I had just completed watching The Diving Bell & The Butterfly DVD I got from a few days (I think) back when the sms to activate me came in. The time was around 8:30 pm and so I rushed in getting ready which was not really that difficult considering I'm a guy and got moving as fast as I could.
Took the first cab that decided my outstretched arm was worth a gander. It was an old school Toyota Crown taxi sporting the blue of the Comfort Taxi group. The cab driver was like how all cab drivers were, chatty when you don't want them to be and eerily silent when you needed a voice to listen to. And I was in no mood for chatter.
A crash course in pedestrian ethics and a civil engineering thesis on road mapping later, we arrived at the entrance to the CTE heading to the AYE. It was just before Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10. Traffic seemed good, despite the moans and groans of my 'chauffeuer' for the day. Well, at least it was moving....... or so I thought.
We edged into the expressway and a bit of the way further in before the congestion seemed to truly be a congestion. No problem right? I mean this is the Central Expressway and all, what with central meaning most traffic passing through here.
Seconds became minutes and I saw an ambulance trying to squeeze its way further down the expressway to where I assumed an accident could have occurred. I mean, this is normal too right? Accidents occur on highways all the time. Some drive too fast, some drive too slow and some drivers should just not freaking have a license. The ambulance came to rest some ways up ahead while several motorcyclists were weaving their way through the stagnant hunks of humming automobiles. They have the advantage of doing so and I knew I would do the same given the situation. Yeah, nothing but the green jealousy monster emanating from where I sat.
Minutes felt like hours and the ever escalating swear-mixed groans of the cab driver I was with didn't help matters.
It was only when I saw the bikers that had once so eagerly meandered their way to the front of the non-moving queue backtracking the other way, did I have a true sense of something being truly wrong.
An eternity went by before the police arrived. And it was only then that I got wind of what was happening up ahead. After much prodding of course. You know how wonderful the men in blue are at dispensing much needed information. Turns out that there was this huge tree that fell across all the lanes of the expressway. There were motorists that were severely injured by that huge log now sprawled some ways ahead from where I was.
I hope they weren't too badly hurt. And I did the only thing I could....I paid the fare ($15 as it stood) and walked out, casually informing any inquirers of what lay ahead to the dismay of my already severely disgruntled cabbie. Even did my civic duty (or at least I thought it was my civic duty) by informing the motorists nearer to the exit to turn back out.
Not much else to add on here, seeing as I was not near enough to Ground Zero. But it was indeed a cab ride to mark all cab rides I've ever had.
No comments:
Post a Comment