She fetched us to the bus station this morning. On the way there, she received a phone call regarding an accident. I was a bit taken aback by the questions she asked upon receiving the call, such as if the was bus badly mangled up, how many people died?
One of the guests had taken the bus last night. At the bus station, they were frantically calling around for news. When they got news that the accident did seem serious; the bus had collided with a tree, in my head I was envisioning a shattered windscreen, not a mangled metal mess of a bus.
The parents called when I was almost reaching the checkpoint. News had finally gotten to Singapore and they were worried that I was on the bus. They said it was bad but they didn't know if there was any Singaporeans involved. When I got back home and saw the pictures on the television, I was shocked.
I kept praying that Rin's friend was ok. I kept praying so hard. It simply never occurred to me that it would be that serious. The fates couldn't be that cruel. How could it be? He had just attended a joyous event - a wedding, for heaven's sake. How could it be so ironic, so cruel? It didn't seem right, not right at all....
I went out to buy the papers. I heaved a sigh of relief when the evening Chinese papers did not report his name, neither did the news on the internet. There was still hope, after all, one of the forums I turned up said that the dead were all Malaysians. Then came the 10 p.m news. A chill ran down my spine when the broadcaster reported out a Hongkonger who was a Singapore PR who works in the hospital...I couldn't catch the details, was he dead or were they merely trying to report the Singaporeans who were involved in the accident?
I only know that his name is David, his parents are in Hong Kong and he was on that bus, seated at the back.
I rushed to google for news. As I searched and read one report after another, I was still hoping that Rin's friend wasn't him. There could be another MO on the bus. Rin's friend could be Singaporean whose parents were vacationing in Hong Kong.
He was seated at the back after all, didn't they say that the impact was at the front?
Worried for Rin, I called her Singapore number, her Malaysian number as well as her best friend Xinyi. I also called Shupei. I reached their voice mails.
I swung from envisioning the worst-case scenario to telling myself to be optimistic by trying to tell myself that I am a pessimist. I didn't know if I was feeling worried and morose or calm but silly. Was David's last name Ho? How could it be? He was coming back from a wedding...he was seated at the back.
I slept at 2 a.m. and woke up at 6 a.m. I didn't know why either. I tried looking for news again but nothing turned up. I searched every few minutes while surfing about randomly. I went to sleep and around 10 a.m, JY messaged with a search result. His full name had came out in a HongKong news site.
"David Ho C.S, a Hong Kong resident, was a surgeon who practiced in a hospital in Singapore."What we didn't want to see come pass, did.
He was the only one out of the ten who died, the only one who wasn't a Malaysian. He was only 2 hours away from Singapore.
I don't know him personally but all of us should have came back safely. We had gone there together, we should have came back together too, all of us.
Waves of thoughts, feelings and despair keeps washing over me. But I don't want to contemplate about the fragility of life, even if it keeps threatening to engulf me again like it did before. I don't want to think about the lack of control we have over our lives. Who and what determines who lives and dies? Why is it so ironic, cruel and unfair?
No. Life cannot be that cruel. The dead must be in a better place if they are not here with us.
David, with all my heart, I'm certain that you are in heaven.
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