Don't cross!

Okay, sorry. Apparently it took more time than I assumed. Did I mentioned that I've been busy?


Anyway, a few days back I was taking a sweet slow ride on the oh-so-unreliable KTM Komuter. I have a bad karma with KTM Komuters, I don't know why. Most of the time it's jam packed with people, while some other times it's very late and unpunctual. Often it's both that it makes you curse everytime you see the one single advertisement in the coach: KTM Komuter: Jimat Masa, Jimat Tenaga, Jimat Belanja. Ah.. Marketing at its best. So anyway, I'm kindof used to be frustrated with the service that I'm kind of adapted with it.

Okay, back to the story. The train was chugging down the track just after Kepong Sentral towards the Sungai Buloh station when suddenly there was a loud bang. LOUD. BANG. I guess that gotta have something to do with my preference to always ride on the frontmost coach or maybe it was just plain loud. Instinctively I know that something was wrong as the train started to slow down and stopped at around a kilometer from the bang. The driver came out from his cabin.

Terlanggar orang la..
Fuyyo.. I never thought that this would ever happen outside of Discovery Channel but it did. The driver then opened the door and went out to look for the body. I've read once somewhere that the driver is responsible to recover the body in such scenario so until the body was found, we are very much delayed. Yes, but for once I'm fine with it. Hey, someone died.. have a little compassion and patient will ya? Obviously someone didn't have both.

A few minutes into the commotion, the driver was still on the track looking for the body with some other people helping around came a big burly guy, around late 40s or something. He doesn't look happy. He stood at the opening, looked at the driver on the track and yelled:

Dah buat report dah la, nanti biar la diorang datang cari! Ni ramai orang nak balik ni!
What the fuck is wrong with you? Someone died. Hello? Mati, meninggal, gol. Does that mean anything to you? Everyone wanted to go back, I know I did but at least wait la for a while. It was bad enough for him to die being ran over by a train. You are suggesting that we just leave his mangled remains on the track? Sick.

Anyway, we finally departed a while after the body was recovered. It was scary I know. Personally, I've crossed the train track a few times myself. One of those was in Kuala Kangsar station. I was just fooling around with Nono and tripped one a cable and landed on the tracks. That is one dense steel. Sakit. The other one was from Kg. Abdullah Hukum to the Abdullah Hukum LRT station on the way back from MidValley. Kids, back when I was your age we don't have a MidValley KTM station. Back then we either took a free shuttle bus from Bangsar LRT to MidValley or we cross the track at Abdullah Hukum. Haha.. scary. I swear I'll never ever do that again. Ever. And neither should you. 

So yeah, the moral of this non-fiction story is be patient and have compassion. Most importantly however is do not cross any rail tracks ever. No matter how tempting it looks. Al-fatihah to the person who perished that night.

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You’re currently reading “Don't cross!,” an entry on pelangi hitam putih

Published:
Sunday, December 09, 2007
by amerhadiazmi