The unbearable shortness of time
My girlfriend nearly got hit by a church van running along the wrong way of the street towards her. The van jacked over the road divider and crashed instead into the car in front of her. No one got hurt although it could have been a deadly one had the van smashed into the drivers’ side of either vehicle.
I was apoplectic. What was the van doing? Escaping from the Angel of Death or into it? She said to me in her own words “the meaning of life is short�. If you looked up short in a dictionary you would see life next to it. I agreed.
Barely twelve months back, I found myself in a tram which rammed the driver’s side of a Toyota (aka Yoda). The Yoda driver did not stop at the red light of a junction and chose to follow a motto of “see yellow light go faster�. Hit from a forty five degree angle, the car had swerved violently to the padestrian sidewalk and faced back at us. The heavy iron post-world-war-two tram felt merely a thump.
I was behind the tram driver, standing in the stairwell with full view of what happened from the windowed folding doors. I saw the split second jerk of the car driver away from his steering wheel as if it would prevent him from being hit. Just as how one tends to shelter one’s head with one’s hands in absence of umbrellas in a torrential rain. It is futile save for the psychological comfort offered. No one was hurt. Everyone got delayed and the car driver, lucky to know what an interval time between two event was after that near horrific crash.
An acquaintance, died a month after I was told he had nose cancer. Leaving nothing but a wake of vaccum in the hearts of families and friends due to the speed of the disease destroying him. This was just last week.
Currently I am feeling somewhat unsettled as there is so much to do and so little time... so much so I dreamt of being chased by a ghost, twice in the same night broken only by a startling wake between ghost number one and ghost number two. I think these ghosts were representative of my anxiety... in both dreams I escaped the wrath of these ugly things by surrendering to the Maker.
As I awoke from Nightmare Number Two, I found Dad’s text messages awaiting. The same message sent twice. And it happened twice overnight. I asked why and he said his second messages were meant to be for ‘Anak2’ (Child number 2) instead of ‘Anak1’ (Child number 1 being me). I said there is an invention called Names for identifying people, in place of numbers, unless he had thirty five kids like some Turkish families do and some kids have the same name.
He replied that in Africa, there is an Emir of Kano who has thirty five children from seventy seven wives and concubines. When the Emir calls “Ado�, there would be thirty five replies. I said at least he calls them by their name even though it is generic. In Dad's case, is the numerical system like a license plate or some sort, as when we are issued tax numbers from the taxman? That we come from an official pool under our grandfather’s brand and unlicensed ones do not get numbers?
He simply said no. It is because when he presses the phone book in his cellphone, the first four contacts would be Anak1, Anak2 Anak3 Anak4. No matter how trivial, to save time. I have not done anything to cause this and it is nothing new. Time is precious and life is not long. It is the limit of one’s lifespan that makes both appear to be unbearably short. But it certainly makes life interesting.
I was apoplectic. What was the van doing? Escaping from the Angel of Death or into it? She said to me in her own words “the meaning of life is short�. If you looked up short in a dictionary you would see life next to it. I agreed.
Barely twelve months back, I found myself in a tram which rammed the driver’s side of a Toyota (aka Yoda). The Yoda driver did not stop at the red light of a junction and chose to follow a motto of “see yellow light go faster�. Hit from a forty five degree angle, the car had swerved violently to the padestrian sidewalk and faced back at us. The heavy iron post-world-war-two tram felt merely a thump.
I was behind the tram driver, standing in the stairwell with full view of what happened from the windowed folding doors. I saw the split second jerk of the car driver away from his steering wheel as if it would prevent him from being hit. Just as how one tends to shelter one’s head with one’s hands in absence of umbrellas in a torrential rain. It is futile save for the psychological comfort offered. No one was hurt. Everyone got delayed and the car driver, lucky to know what an interval time between two event was after that near horrific crash.
An acquaintance, died a month after I was told he had nose cancer. Leaving nothing but a wake of vaccum in the hearts of families and friends due to the speed of the disease destroying him. This was just last week.
Currently I am feeling somewhat unsettled as there is so much to do and so little time... so much so I dreamt of being chased by a ghost, twice in the same night broken only by a startling wake between ghost number one and ghost number two. I think these ghosts were representative of my anxiety... in both dreams I escaped the wrath of these ugly things by surrendering to the Maker.
As I awoke from Nightmare Number Two, I found Dad’s text messages awaiting. The same message sent twice. And it happened twice overnight. I asked why and he said his second messages were meant to be for ‘Anak2’ (Child number 2) instead of ‘Anak1’ (Child number 1 being me). I said there is an invention called Names for identifying people, in place of numbers, unless he had thirty five kids like some Turkish families do and some kids have the same name.
He replied that in Africa, there is an Emir of Kano who has thirty five children from seventy seven wives and concubines. When the Emir calls “Ado�, there would be thirty five replies. I said at least he calls them by their name even though it is generic. In Dad's case, is the numerical system like a license plate or some sort, as when we are issued tax numbers from the taxman? That we come from an official pool under our grandfather’s brand and unlicensed ones do not get numbers?
He simply said no. It is because when he presses the phone book in his cellphone, the first four contacts would be Anak1, Anak2 Anak3 Anak4. No matter how trivial, to save time. I have not done anything to cause this and it is nothing new. Time is precious and life is not long. It is the limit of one’s lifespan that makes both appear to be unbearably short. But it certainly makes life interesting.
posted by cherry at 1:13 AM
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