In Continuum.

The Mercedes to Blame

Forgive, sounds good.
Forget, I'm not sure I could.
They say time heals everything,
But I'm still waiting

Almost two years ago, a picture in the tabloids shocked me as I read it from a pile of old newspaper. The one I was reading was a couple of days old, and in the corner of the page was a picture of a white Mercedes Benz, with blood all over the side of the car's doors, with one of them seriously dented and damaged. It wasn't just dried blood, but bloody hand prints of a person who was dragged along with the car in the middle of the night before disappearing under the crushing weight of the vehicle. Two years ago, a scholar to be, died under the wheel of a female hit-and-run driver and the his bright future went along with his bare skin, as it was dragged against the hard tarmac floor and was literally scratched off his bones.

Two years on, with the female driver caught and the to-be scholar long dead, this piece of news was broadcast over the Taiwanese news this evening again. There was a live simulation of the accident, with the white Mercedes Benz pulled out from the garage along with the motorbike that the young college student was riding that night. They were both dust-covered and old, but the scratches on the vehicles were still clear to the onlookers, as they watched the police struggle with the distorted wheels of the bike, and the sound of the chains rattling as the tow truck lowered the Mercedes. The scene was re-enacted, the props were prepared. But the cast weren't there, because one is on probation while the other is six feet under - whatever that was left hanging from the bottom of the car that night, anyway.

I'm through with doubt,
There's nothing left for me to figure out,
I've paid a price,
And I'll keep paying

Something must have came over the woman driving the car that night, something made her take that illegal U-turn at the junction, thinking that nobody would be tailing her from the back since it was in the wee-hours of the morning. So she made that fateful turn, and as she did so a motorist rammed into the side of her white Mercedes head on.

He was conscious then, and his shirt must have caught onto the dented side of the car somehow. The motorbike was thrown over the car and landed on the opposite side, while the female driver inside watched wide-eyed as the window of the back door exploded into a shower of glass. The boy was badly injured, blood pouring out from ever wound on his body and arms. With the last of his strength, he pounded his bare palms on the side of the damaged door, hoping that the driver would get out of the car and call the ambulance. With every last bit of strength, he hammered down as hard as he could on the metal as the sound of the hard thumping echoed through the empty streets where curious residents peeked out from their darkened windows. He pounded, and with every attempt, he left bloody hand prints on the sides, dreadful and horrifying to look upon. But the woman never left the car, never opened the door at all. She stepped down on the pedal, and the car sped away with the boy still stuck to the side, now being dragged along by every agonizing inch by agonizing inch.

I'm not ready to make nice,
I'm not ready to back down,
I'm still mad as hell
And I don't have time
To go round and round and round
It's too late to make it right
I probably wouldn't if I could
Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is
You think I should

Overcame by fear and confusion, the woman drove knowing full well that she just got into a car accident, and might have possibly killed a person in the process. She drove on into the night, and still the boy was trapped at the side of the door helpless, and still pounding on the door so desperately. But his efforts to save himself must have spelled his own doom, for his struggling ripped the shirt that caught onto the door and down he went under the wheels of the car, under the weight of the vehicle.

Two years later, in front of the court house. The boy's mother wept before the camera as reporters surrounded her with a circle of microphones. She wept, for the loss of her son and most of all, for the way he son died so horrifyingly. After the autopsy, it was concluded that the dragging of the body and the weight of the car killed the boy and not the initial impact. The skin of the boy was ripped off his bones as the car traveled down the road, and as he went under the car, his body was complete crushed and was killed instantly. At the thought of that, with the female driver still on probation, the old mother with her carefully permed her wept again on national television and moaned for the loss of her son. When asked about her thoughts on the female driver still 'out there', between the sobs she managed to say:

I want to hate her.

I really want to hate her.

But I haven't got a place to start,

and it is so painful to be here without a son

and without a reason to start hating...

I know you said
Why can't you just get over it,
It turned my whole world around
and i kind of like it

But what is it so difficult? She made an illegal U-turn, she made no effort to check if there was anybody behind her car at that time, and she dragged her son nearly a hundred metres before he went under the wheel. She could've looked into the rear mirror, or she could've heeded the boy's dying pleas as he banged on the side of the door. There are so many reasons to hate, to truly hate this woman that killed her son and literally scratched his skin off his bone. So why is it so hard for her to hate?

There isn't a point to start, because I'm sure the woman never meant for the boy to run into her car, nor did she meant to have her emotions take over the wheels as her mind went completely blank and oblivious to the boy's banging on the door. Those blood stains, those red hand prints, they were blocked out of her mind as emotions took control, as they took away reason and sense and drove on down the road into the night. Should this woman be condemned because she had no control over her feelings? Should we then, hate her for her helplessness? Was it her fault to want to turn back and head back to where she was?

I made by bed, and I sleep like a baby,
With no regrets and I don't mind saying,
It's a sad sad story
That a mother will teach her daughter
that she ought to hate a perfect stranger.

This is hard, when the words have to be subdued, when they have to be buried deep because there isn't a point to publicly proclaim this welling of emotions. Simply because, it is not going to change anything. With these emotions buried, I tried to find more reasons to hate, but there isn't anything left for me to do so anymore. It's painful, and I know how the permed hair lady must be feeling right now. It's painful, but what can we do about it really? After all, at this point in time, it is always easier to forgive than to forget. It's not like a set of memories which I can exchange for a brand new one. I'd like to, but I can't. So right now, this is it. This, is it.

With my leg torn out and skin ripped off, I wonder if anybody is going to find me scattered all across the highway. I imagine that few minutes of consciousness while he was there on the road in the middle of the night, the way our brain still works even after decapitation. Can I just say that I am not ready to make nice, too? Can I also say that it is indeed to late to make it right, and probably wouldn't if I could, too? I know the amount of political background involved in Dixie Chick's 'Not Ready To Make Nice'. But come to think about it, the 'hate' theme still applies, and it applies everywhere.

Don't get me wrong, there is no hate involved now. But I'd rather feel something, than nothing at all.

And how in the world
Can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they'd write me a letter
Saying that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

I'm not ready to make nice,
I'm not ready to back down,
I'm still mad as hell
And I don't have time
To go round and round and round
It's too late to make it right
I probably wouldn't if I could
Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is
You think I should

Forgive, sounds good.
Forget, I'm not sure I could.
They say time heals everything,
But I'm still waiting