I got hit by a car yesterday - one of the strangest things that has happened to me, by far. The other strange thing was sending over 60 messages today but this is largely peripheral to the issue of getting knocked down by a car.
Anyway I really thank God that I'm still alive, albeit still a little shaken. But for the record, my life did not flash in front of my eyes during the impact; it was oddly that of horror which turned to embarrassment which turned to dread when I was flung down the road. I was horrified and can distinctly recall thinking that I've never thought this would ever happen to me, and then after realizing I could still stand and walk about, I felt almost embarrassed because there were people staring and asking me if I was alright, and the biggest thing on my mind wasn't my condition but reassuring everyone that I was fine and obviously alive and lucid. The dread came when I realized that I had to break the news to people, and I felt like telling a lie and informing my parents that I just tripped and fell down when I reached home, but after the driver (in her shaken and shocked state) handed me her phone (actually, iPhone), I broke the news to my dad and started with "this may seem surreal, but..." awaiting, but kind of relishing, the cry of astonishment and shock on the other side of the line.
The A&E experience was not an eventful one as I imagined it to be filled with ER/Scrubs/Grey's Anatomy-type images and simultaneously unfolding dramas accompanied by scenes of massive carnage and people writhing in pain on stretchers. The people waiting there were mostly old and sneezing, and there was a miasma of damp blankets and soiled tissue paper that hung in the air. The real fun began only when I was wheeled around by medical staff in those mobile beds to the ops room (incidentally filled with funny old coots at that time) and I familiarized myself with the South Korean rocket launch and the lawsuit against Emirates for alleged price-fixing on CNA while waiting for something to happen.
After my CAT scan, I half-expected to acquire superpowers from the radiation, but my reflection in the windows suggested mostly normalcy and I realised that this was disappointingly not to be. I had to go for an X-ray at a really unearthly hour, and all the time I was wheeled around in a blearily myopic early morning stupor with a doctor that kept going "poor boy, I know how you feel". On that note, female doctors are by far much nicer than male ones. Maybe there's a maternal reason for this.
I really liked the ward, because it was high up and overlooked Novena and the green hills, and I could see my favorite buildings from the floor-to-ceiling bay windows. It was cold but not freezing, and in the morning I could have breakfast in bed (which was an artfully decorated platter of soon kueh with a surprisingly complex flavour from the fragrant garlic). Apart from this, I was thoroughly sated with the boredom of having nothing to do but sleep. My dad visited me in time for lunch, and I had a black pepper chicken pie from The Royals cafe nearby, the only time I would care to eat filo pastry.
Yet on a deeper level, I do realise how close I came to losing my life. The jokes we sometimes make about being grateful just to be alive (while battling a monster workload) suddenly took on a chillingly literal meaning, and the fact that I survived seems to hint at a greater plan out there. In the ward, I was joined in the morning by a young Chinese foreign worker who was knocked down by a car, and the severity of his injuries far exceeded mine - I was alarmed at how things could have turned out. If the car that ran into me was going a higher speed, I would definitely not be able to laugh a little at my condition, send tweets about my stay or even speak, for that matter. But for now, I'm just vacillating between joy and this another feeling that I know will lose its meaning when expressed in words.
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