Shield

It was like a regular, happy-go-lucky day today, and it was supposed to be. Until I got into a minor accident (it’s too strong of a word still, the front of my car merely gently knocked into it) where I suppose both of us were at fault, the old geezer for illegally parking thus obstructing the traffic, and me for my poor judgement.

It was then that a fatherly figure, a motherly figure, a brotherly figure, a friendly figure would be all I need. It was security that I lack, and I was stumped when encountering a situation I wasn’t in before. I wasn’t trained to face this. If the Japanese-speaking Vietnamese guy whose BMW 3-Series I crashed into with my motorbike demanded for payment there and then, I would’ve obliged because I knew it was entirely my fault, but not this. Not this when a scratch barely surfaced and the RM50 compensation was demanded.

“It isn’t the money that matters, it’s the principle of things,” was what Gopi, our resident money-minder, said then when we were in Nha Trang, semi-stranded in the town due to a miscommunication between our hotel staffs and the bus company. It wasn’t the RM50 that does any damage to me, but the manner in which the old geezer hurled insults in Canto and insistence that I pay up for a barely existing scratch.

Pretend as I may be to suddenly believe in the existence of karma just to make myself feel better, but today I failed as an adult. I failed to shield myself from the world’s inherent obscenities.