haven't been posting for some time, even though a number of events streamed past my life, with Death on a raft, bypassing me at least twice.
i) on my way home from co practice, the train juddered to a stop, it's front half adjacent to the platform of Chinese Garden, the other half still out. there was a long pause, before most of the lights went out. the commuters were stuck inside for quite some time,
i went to the ground floor of the station. there were sounds of sirens in the air. Everywhere, heads turned in the general direction of the main road as we all tried to make sense of the situation. i haven't a clue what happened, but policemen and civil defence people were rushing in.
i called dad and asked if he could come on his motorbike to bring me home; but he declined [found out later that he has downed quite a substantial amount of beer]. he told me to take a cab instead, but there was already a long queue at the stand. what's more, the spaces were, at that moment, being occupied by police cars (or was it civil defence vehicles? forgot).
i walked home.
the next day, i came to know what had transpired. someone had committed suicide by jumping onto the tracks just as the train (the very one i was on) came into the station.
he couldn't foot his medical bills, on top of that, he had had rent to pay and a family to feed. thus, he quit the game of life.
when the news was out, donations poured in to aid the family of the deceased. he could have lived, really.
ii) there was still some li (pear) left in the bowl. i presumed they were my mother's, so i took them to her room, wanting to proffer the fruit to her. the master bedroom toilet door was shut, there was a strange moaning coming from within. i've never heard my mum cry in pain, so the moans sounded foreign to my ears.
"mum...?" i asked.
"jiao papa," she said, her voice soft and laboured. "hen tong~~~"
i called dad.
my mind was a blur as i went back to reading my book [Drowned Wednesday by Garth Nix] but i could hardly concentrate as the moaning continued, accompanied by my dad's voice as he tried to comfort my mum.
we called the ambulance [the emergency "995" please-get-your-ass-here-this-instant-995], but they took about 10+ minutes, i think. during that worrying 10+ minutes, my sis and i paved a way in our house for efficiency by opening the side panels of the gate and door, and shifting the carpet and sofa aside.
the ambulance people arrived, bringing with them a stretcher and heavy equipment; they stepped right into our house with their shoes on. stomped into the master bedroom, where my mum lay lying on the bed with dad seated at her side, the dim lamp casting feeble yellowish light on this gut-twisting, sickening atmoshphere. then they proceeded to ask calmly and none too quickly, if my mum had fever or high blood pressure, and any other pre-existing illnesses, while mum was still crying out in pain. if you look above us that moment, you would probably see large bursting speech bubbles saying "GET ON WITH IT ALREADY!!! $#(^$)!*@^$)(*!^@$!!!!"
Mum was transferred onto the stretcher and pa followed them to the ambulance.
Silence reigned in the house as my sis and i looked at one another and simply shrugged. dad probably wouldn't be back that night either.
luckily, it wasn't a big issue. we went to NUH the next day (or was it next next day?), on Deepavali. Mum had some problem with her instestines, something about food remains or something that lined the inner wall of her intestines, turning into ancient crust something something something that caused her pain. the follow-up treatment saw her drinking lactulose, this substance that's supposed to soften your stools. they encouraged more dietary fibre as well.
