December 31, 2008

He's one step slower, I'm one Coke lesser

I just had my dosage of Coke earlier on. What a fix! *sniff* *sniff* I always liked the bubbling effects and the burning sensations when the liquid lingered between my palate and tongue. That is why I am addicted to 'Coking' ignoring what are the after-effects of consuming too much of gas drinks. Hmm, at least it kept me sober and more awake after the whole session.

I should have intoxicated myself with more Coke that day. At least I could be more energetic with the higher level of sugar and caffeine, and I would have floored the pedal when I drove through the long dusty, straight road.

It was a sunny Saturday morning, just a day after Boxing Day. My relatives were here, and I was driving them in my uncle's few-months-old 2.0L sedan. Yes, you can feel the difference in those better built cars, the quality of the interior, the engine has lesser noise, suspensions are soft yet solid when going through the humps, ample of space... etc etc etc.

We drove down to Klang, to somewhere near my in-laws place. Not sure whether it's in the Penang people's blood, but hell we love to eat Bah Kut Teh! This time round, we went to our favourite place for the dried 'version'. Yummy, one would say. It comes with sorts of thickness of the pork (we do not consume the intestines, not for me!) cooked and stirred in the hot pot, with mixture of herbs, sauce, dried chillies, the delicious dried cuttlefish, and their other unseen 'secret' ingredients of course. Imagine the pork is so tenderly soft, the blend of the sauce is not too salty or nor too sweet.

Ahh, I'm not the king of food, so some descriptions of the taste are lost here. Hey, don't give me that look. I am no gourmet or Jamie Oliver. Well, okay Jamie Oliver is the celebrity chef, but I bet he has got better 'culinary vocab' than me. I am just an ordinary eater, I eat to live, that's it :)

After the stomachful session, we headed back to KL. We reached a roundabout and I was able to overtake a huge container before entering to this long and dusty road. Moments later I looked at the rear mirror, and gleefully said to myself " Phew, that container slow, too bad he's behind me"

I was driving at a tortoise speed, approximately 50 to 60kph. The road was clear, no vehicles ahead of me, just that bicycle around 30 metres in front. He was riding slowly by the side of the road, and he looked back for a moment, together with his bicycle inching rightwards. Then again, he swerved back to the side. As I was approaching him, I honked him continuously. He turned his head to the back to peep, and turned back cycling. I thought "Ah, this fella 'saw' and 'heard' me".

As I was nearing him, I veered my car outwards to overtake him. Out of a sudden, when I was 2 to 3 metres behind him, he made a right turn to the middle of the road! Yes, I can see the entire of his face, together with the full view of his 2-wheel vehicle. He was indeed trying to make a U-turn on the so called 'traffic free road' and his eye-hand coordination worked TOO WELL (not!), knowing me honking and approaching from behind.

Err... Hello, are you telling me that your skin is stronger than the metal of my car? I turned my steering wheel even more rightwards, but to no avail, the stunt-man was already in-action by rolling past the side of my car together with his bicycle. From the very front left corner, blacking out the sunlight as he reaches the left side windows with his body all the way till the end of the car.

After the process of 'running' over him, I looked back at the rear mirror, only to see him bouncing a few times before landing on the road. I pulled over to the shoulder immediately, open my door and started shouting and cursing and barking like a mad dog. A dark colored skin man was sitting on the middle of the road, with the truck I overtook earlier stopped at a distance before him. He scrambled his way up and moved to the other side of the road.

Blood seemed to gush to my head. I can feel the heat. I wanted to kick his ass! Damn this fella! If he wanted to kill himself, better do it elsewhere, not on me and my passengers on board. Use a bit of brain please, not on the middle of the road. As I was crossing over the road, I was still pointing my finger at him, and still shouting words in Malay like 'Oik, lu buta ka? Lu tarak dengar wa punya hon ka? Tak tau kayuh basikal ah?? Erm, I do not speak Indian, but Indians here normally can speak Malay. Standing in front of him, although the words were still firing at him, I started to observe him as well. He's still alive in the first place. He managed to stand on his 2 feet. Both hands are still moving, although one hand kept on scrubbing his head. I bet he's got a knock after falling of from the 'run-over' session.

I was quite puzzled on how can this tough guy survive the crash. Reports said that if you were to have a head-on collision with a person at speed of 40-50kph, it always turns out to be a fatal one. The force and impact to the person is too great, almost 4 times of his weight. If you're 75kg, then it will be like 300kg of weight crushing onto you. Or you weighing 300 kg crushing to the ground. Hmm, you still die anyway.

Then I started toning down my voice, asking how he was doing, any major injuries. Seemed like he only bled on the finger, some scratches on his hands and elbows, and the head with a bump. He doesn't seemed to respond to my questions. I wondered whether the fall had slowed down his reactions, affected signals from his brain to his mouth. Then he started to talk: "So, how's your car?" Ah, he replied me... in English. Only then I realized that, hey this guy must be fresh from India. No wonder he did not reply me when I was talking to him earlier on. He did not understand a single word out from my mouth. He can only see a ferocious dog that kept barking as if wanting to tear his flesh apart.

He's okay, still alive and standing, and he continued his journey. At least he managed to cross over the other side of the road now. I walked back to the car. The collision was quite impactful to the car. Multiple dents and scratches from the front of the car, continuing to the sides of both doors till nearing the back bumper of the car.

He missed the front lamps though, as the crash only hit on the side of the car. No frontal collision in this scenario. No wonder this English-speaking crash-test-dummy able to survive this exercise. Good news for him, as he's still alive and walking. Good news for us as well. I won't dare to imagine what would happen if he was lying on the middle of the road, not moving a single bit. Gosh. Then you won't see me blogging here at this moment of time, not until the next few months or years.

Thankfully he wasn't pedaling one step more. Thankfully I wasn't driving single bit slower, as by that time he would have exposed more of him to the middle of the road. Damn, I should have driven faster, so that I would drove past him even before he started to peep to the back. Who said driving fast, can't save lives? At least it will save some pocket burns and heartaches (of my uncle) looking at this condition of his few-months-old car!

Breathing a sigh of relief, our journey to shopping continued that day, although the dents affected my uncle's heart and can be seen on his face too. But things always happen for a reason. He cycled one step slower. I drank one lesser can of Coke. And you get to see a stunt show in the middle of the road. Hopefully this will break the 'unlucky charm' for this year, and I'll pray hard for next year to be a smooth sailing one. Fingers crossed!

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