In Continuum.

For the fifteenth time, I have been sick for the past couple of days. It isn't fun to be sick at the very beginning of your holidays, but the good news out of this whole ordeal is knowing that I have recovered with more than half of the holidays left. That is great, and it also means that I get to resume my normal daily activities during a holiday, which usually involve doing nothing. Still, I have burned the past couple of days, almost literally, away because of the fever that has been coming on and going away for reasons unknown. It'd come on one day and fade away on the other, only to come back a couple of days later. Let it be known that I am thoroughly healed now, and I did not show any symptoms of swine flu in the process of my feverish experience, thank you very much. While I was ill, two very amazing women took great care of me, and they are my mother and Neptina. I have already elaborated on how they took care of me through those dreadful days, so I shall not repeat their deeds here again. However, this entry was inspired by something that happened the day when I left Neptina's house with a throbbing head and a fever that peaked at 39 degrees. Here's what happened that night under her block.

With her right arm tucked underneath my armpit, she carefully led me to the elevator and even kicked the doors open because they closed on us prematurely. Inside the elevator, my head was burning and the whole place swirled in my head. Every step was treacherous for me, and I felt like I was dancing on a tight rope across a deep valley, or something. We eventually reached the side of the road where we tried to stop a cab to take me home. At her neighborhood, stopping a cab by the side of the road is usually as easy as finding a grain of sand at the beach. You just stick your hand out and a cab with a green sign comes gliding to a stop in no time. That night was a little different, and the cab took a little longer than usual to appear around the corner. So I rested my hands on my bent knees and closed my eyes for a while to get the swirling out of my head. It helped for a while, but I really needed to sit down somewhere - preferably in the seat of a cab. While we were waiting, though, a couple of cars stopped right in front of us due to the traffic light, and some of the drivers stared out at the both of us curiously and without question. I was obviously in distress, and Neptina obviously was worried about my condition. Yet, of course, nobody cared to step out of their vehicle and ask if I needed some assistance. Like, a ride to a clinic or something. No, they didn't ask. The light turned green, they stepped on their pedals, and they were gone from the junction within seconds.

Of course, I really didn't need assistance to get home, nor did I need a visit to the clinic. But I'd like to have been asked, you know, by one of those curious people that stuck their heads out further than they would have under normal circumstances. Those drivers that stopped at the traffic light and the ones that drove past us, none of them bothered to stop and ask me if I was OK, and if I needed help. Under normal circumstances, I probably wouldn't be asking too much, and you are probably also thinking the exact same thing as well. You are probably thinking that I am living in a dreamworld, that I need to wake up and realize that not everything is about bunnies and rainbows. I agree with that, and I understand that in the real world, people don't stop to ask a stranger in distress if he needs any help and assistance. Such a thing only happens in the perfect world, something that does not necessarily exist. So, I understand the reality of things, yet an incident that happened a couple of weeks earlier prompted me to expect such an act of kindness from complete strangers. It was a small incident that initially amused me for the most part, but it has come back to me at that very moment when I was in utter discomfort. I realized that for most people in our society, satisfying their own curiosity seems to be of a greater priority than helping out a stranger.

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking home from dinner with Neptina when we came across something rather curious festering in the drain that ran parallel to the pavement that we were on. Something was growing inside the drain, and the both of us walked closer to the edge of the drain to get a better look. It was a deep drain, and whatever was growing in that drain sure had a lot of room to stretch its legs if it had legs. It didn't, because it was a giant foam ball gathered in a section of the drain, and it was growing bigger and bigger as more foam was being fed to this white bubbly monster. There was a trail of bubbles coming from somewhere, and they just kept on coming endlessly and making the bubble grow larger all the time. We were fascinated with the fact that the drain was literally turning into a bubble river, and we started to throw things into the drain to destroy the white line of foam. But every time we did, the foam would swallow up whatever we threw, even a giant rock that was bigger than my palm. We took some pictures and had a laugh out of it, not to realize that we attracted a whole queue of commuters behind us. You see, apparently, our activities next to the drain actually attracted a bunch of drivers to stop their cars by the side of the road and see what was happening. Yeah, just because Neptina and I were pointing at something in the drain and taking pictures of it.

Quite a handful of cars either slowed down or stopped completely to see what in the world we were pointing at. I mean, to us, it was just a drain full of bubbles, and it looked fascinating to us - but they didn't know that. They probably thought it was some kind of roadkill, or a dead body dumped in the drain inside a trash bag, or something newsworthy like that. That was probably why they were all curious to take a peek at what was happening, because they were "kapo" so to speak. At that time, I was slightly amused by how a few hand gestures and a camera could attract so much attention and, a possible traffic congestion. Like, I was capable of doing something on that scale by doing so little, and to be able to manipulate fellow human beings made me feel good about myself, somehow. Like, they all thought that the bubbles in the drain was a dead corpse or something, and they'd probably think themselves as being stupid once they find out what they stopped their cars for. It was amusing back then, but then it wasn't really that amusing when I was at the side of the road, gasping for breath, desperately wanting for a cab to pull up by the side of the road. At that time, certainly nobody cared to stop at all.

It just got me thinking on the way home and a couple of minutes ago, about how we have very strange priorities in our lives, you know. On one hand we have people going the distance to satisfy their curiosities. Stopping their car in the middle of Boundary Road! Every driver is going to tell you that that is the dumbest thing any driver could do, no matter the traffic condition. But those drivers did it, all because they wanted a piece of whatever that was happening - nothing much other than a gathering of bubbles. On the other hand, we have a guy who was truly in need, and yet nobody bothered to lift a finger when it came to helping him out. I mean, they all saw me in distress, it was obvious that I was ill and needed some kinda help. I think I would have refused their helping hand if offered, but even a sick man likes to be asked, you know. But you know how it is, that'd be asking for too much in today's society, right. Stopping your car, winding down the window, asking a complete stranger in the middle of the night if he needed help - preposterous! Such an act of kindness are almost unheard of, other than those fabricated stories we read in newspaper columns every once in a while about how a tourist supposedly had a good experience with a local, or something like that.

There is no doubt that there are kind people everywhere in Singapore, you know. I mean, I have met my fair share of kind people too, and they were always very enthusiastic about taking a step further than they should. But they are few and far in between, and you seldom ever hear about good deeds like that at all. I mean, our society and culture seems to promote the polar opposite of these good deeds somehow. You pay a visit to STOMP, a citizen journalism website, and you are going to see ugly deeds by the locals flashed across the front page. Right now, we have an article about a molester and a picture of a guy taking up a priority seat. On normal days, you get articles about people who cannot care less about others, people picking their noses, people making a scene in a public area, whatever. It just seems like these uglier deeds are always being magnified and more appreciated, so to speak, because people prefer to read about such things. Perhaps reading these news makes them feel better about themselves, to know that they are not like that, you know. If you read about how somebody went further than they should to help others, you feel bad because you've never done something like that before. So nobody wants to read something like that, and it gets pushed to the fourth or fifth page.

It's just the way our society works I guess, how we always judge before we know. Like, I remember there was this time when I was on the train, and it was fairly crowded at that point in time. I twisted my back the day before and it was really digging into my back. So I jumped at the first empty seat available because sitting down made the pain feel slightly better for me. But as I sat down there, I started looking at the people in front of me, and thought about what they must have been thinking. The truth is, if there was a sixty year old man, looking fairly healthy, in the same carriage as I was, I would have been stared upon as being the inconsiderate young man, the guy who refused to let the old man take the seat, or have my picture taken and posted on STOMP, or something. But I needed the seat because I had a real issue, I was in pain. I needed the seat because sitting down helped. But of course, everybody would just assume whatever they would normally assume, and then label this person as this and label that person as that. That is how things work anyway, and we all just have to suck it up.

It's probably how I was labeled that night by the side of the road too. They probably thought I was a drunkard, and they probably didn't want their seats to be stained by my vomit or something. But then again, it was not even eleven o'clock at night, and I was in the middle of a Pasir Ris neighborhood. I think drunkards usually appear much later at night and nearer to clubs and bars, right? Anyway, I made it home that night when a cab pulled up on the other side of the road. It took quite a bit of effort, but I made it anyway. Come to think about it, it really wouldn't have been very different if somebody were to have stopped. You know, like I said, I would have refused his or her help. But still, if you think about it, if a society is willing to stop their cars by the side of the road because of a bubble river, shouldn't they also be willing to stop their cars for the needy? I mean, clearly, we have our priorities mixed up here, don't we.