Fragile

Witnessing a road accident is not the peachiest thing.

My mom was driving my brother to a shopping mall near our house so he could catch the latest Star Wars episode; I accompanied them in the front passenger seat. On the way there, a blue pickup truck carrying an unsecured gas cylinder came out onto an adjacent lane from a junction to our left, and the swerve caused the cylinder to topple out from the back of the truck and spin into oncoming traffic. A motorcyclist directly behind the truck desperately tried to avoid the cylinder in his path, but it was headed for him way too fast, and he ended up ramming straight into it. The bike skidded on its side, the motorist hurtled across the road, somersaulted through the air, bounced off the tarmac, rolled through the air again and somehow landed on the kerb a good 7 metres away from the impact. He propped himself up, looking dazed and shaken but definitely very much alive. In the duration of these six seconds, my mom and I were swearing as though we had sold our mouths to the devil.

Mom tore down the highway to chase after the pickup truck, horning and darting in and out, ironically like those "crazy young punks who deserve to die" she's always talked about.

We finally caught up to the truck and I took down the license plate number. We sped up to the driver's side where two guys were chatting away, oblivious to what had just happened. I rolled down my window, threw my arms out and waved like a madman to catch their attention and signalled them to pull over. They did so and my mom came out in a flurry of urgent anger to inform them of what had just happened, telling them to turn around and check up on the accident. It took a while for the two young men to form startled looks on their faces; they either had been on something the night before or they just possessed the cumulative IQ of a celery stick. They did eventually realize that their cylinder was indeed missing, and they drove up to the next U-turn.

My mom drove back to the shopping mall, still cussing at their carelessness. My body remained frozen in my cringing position, clammy hands keeping a firm grip on my collarbone. Throughout the entire affair, my brother kept silent in the backseat, probably just annoyed at how messed-up drivers could have cost him a good seat in the cinema.