Runaway Trolley

The railway trolley hurtling down the track, where in its path five people were tied to the line. The railwayman at the shunting tower sees it unfolding. On an available side track there’s only one person similarly tied. What to do in the railwayman’s shoes? (Numerous variations: the indiv. on the side track is the daughter of the railwayman; &etc.) A leader in a think tank down in Melbourne was advocating a shut down of all except essential services—electricity, water & internet—and either close the borders entirely, or allowing citizens to return and housing them in controlled facilities. In Australia a substantial majority of new infections were arising from travellers returning to the country, as was the case currently in China and also here in Singapore. Earlier in the morning there was unusual knocking from behind the party wall. Starting, stopping; starting again. Along Paya Lebar Link beneath the MRT line where there was slender young greenery by the path, the death throes of a bird it sounded like. That was no cooing. But it hasn’t really started here yet; the first two deaths were only recorded yesterday. Last night at Azhar almost every table had been occupied, a young Chinese couple in fact requesting to share with barely a metre separation. With Shiela joining we also sat under a metre away and leaning forward a number of times when the conversation became a little warm. Shiela has been focused on her painting, displaying some commendable determination; her reports from the trip to Bangalore were inspiring. Passing through Paya Lebar Square en route to lunch slender, shapely legs took the attention as usual. There was some little assurance in that, like a comforting memory returned to mind. One wondered whether risky, reckless sex may have started somewhere, in some other locale perhaps. Sing was unlikely after the decades of social programming, the cleanliness, orderliness and the rest. At the Buddhist place around half the tables were filled, the fare delightful as ever. It was to be the adjacent teahouse again after lunch for the quiet, the good separation, the black tea and the fine reception from the aunties. Again yesterday there had been another example of the tea tray first carefully landed, then in three or four separate movements slid slowly forward and finally swivelled so that the handle of the pot sat within reach. Taiwanese Buddhist order of a particular kind, established by an esteemed master still in her forties she may have been. An added thought too at the lunch table, from two or three days after the event. Sameer the Kashmiri had been rather perplexed and confounded by the report of the “herd immunity” concept, which was at that time still the British means of tackling the virus. Even for a modern, progressive Muslim with excellent English, that kind of implied equivalence had been a bridge too, too far.