Frank
dropped in to visit me (and buy some books) yesterday. He is an
interesting one: a mathematician, a photographer, and a lover of arts
and literature. (I always get the eye-roll when I tell anyone that I
also enjoy reading books on mathematics. So there. He, of course, is an
academic; quite a different level that.)We were talking about over-intellectualising everything, reading more into a situation than there is. I told him the story of my housekeeper, recently diagnosed with a malignant growth in her breast. Panic, panic, panic: that is, by everyone else, except her. I was shocked too, but also a little taken aback by her passive response. Was she in denial? Was everyone else simply doing the Chicken Little, the-sky-is-falling, dance on her behalf, with limited understanding of the situation? Why don’t you panic, damn it! Or did she really not understand the implications?
“She is like a cat,” I said to Frank. “Simply living; taking life in its stride.”
“Meow, meow. Scratch, scratch, scratch,” Frank responded, understanding.
We are supposed to be living in an age of knowledge, but there is so precious little of it. All we do is panic. Chemicals in fruits and vegetables: panic. In meat: panic. Franken food: panic. Fracking (whatever that is): panic. Transfat: panic. Mercury poisoned fish: panic. Climate change: panic. Antibiotics: panic. Medicines: panic. Street crime: panic, etc, etc, etc. Everything is bad: panic!
We have thousands of things to panic about and we do it remarkably well, which brings me to another story.
Why is there a television in the police station?
This happened two weeks ago. (Why am I writing about it only now? Frank suggested I should.) I was out on my daily 6.30-am walk with my stick and my Doberman. Dawn was just breaking, so I could see, but not very clearly. Three motorcycles rode past. Then they turned around. I froze on the spot. Something was wrong.
Across the road in front of the kindergarten on Jalan Kasah, a man was dropping off his wife who worked there, as he did every morning. The three motorcycles surrounded the MPV. Knives and machetes came out, and the six punks set about to mug the couple holding daggers to their throats, with me right across the road barely ten feet away. I mind ticked, evaluating my choices. There was no way I could take on six armed punks, with my dog, a stick and a bad knee, not to mention (ahem), as a sexagenarian. I could have released my dog on them, except that there would have been mayhem. The punks could have hurt the couple badly in panic, and I would have been defenceless if they turned on me. So I did the only thing I could: shouted like hell to wake some neighbours nearby. Nobody came out, although several people watched from afar.
I don’t how long this went on: maybe a minute, maybe less. I’m not sure if they got what they wanted when they got on to their bikes to ride off, swearing, waving fists and weapons at me. One rider threw something in my direction from about six feet away. I was not hit.
I went up to the couple. The woman was hysterical and the man looked dazed. I told him that she needed to see a doctor, indicating his MPV, but I don’t think he understood. Just then, another neighbour plucked up enough courage to come near. “She needs to see a doctor,” I told him. "Yes, yes," he said and took charge of the situation.
I was outraged and angry at my helplessness, at the helplessness of my entire neighbourhood that was being victimised daily, as I walked home. I was in no mood to hang around and talk. I spoke to my next-door neighbour, the security rep for our street, and he promised to get something done. This was the third mugging I had witnessed on our street in a month. I saw the first two as the gang was getting away. (Same gang; I recognised the faces.) This was full frontal.
Throughout the day, I was still outraged and angry, but in control. Then the next day I was struck by another emotion: inexplicable fear. I began to hyperventilate and I couldn’t focus on anything. I became incoherent. (I think I asked someone where I could buy a samurai sword.) All sorts of things went through my head. Was I in shock? Was this PTSD? What was I thinking? But what else could I have done? I could have been killed. I chewed off a few heads on the phone that morning (which I am sorry for). Sorry, innocent bystanders. Are you going to make a police report? Whatever for? I might as well speak to my furniture!
Even after two weeks, the feeling is still there, but at least I feel well enough to write about it. I guess it will take a long time for it to go away completely. If it does.
As I was coming to work this morning, I glanced inside the Balai Polis Bangsar Baru. Can someone tell me why they have a large screen television in a police station?
