I Saw My Life Flash Before My Eyes (But It Was Only A UFO)

I dragged Mary to Backyard last night. I was buzzing, buzzing, buzzing and she had an early bus to catch this morning for a wedding on Saturday, which meant early to bed - was there ever anything so inevitable?

Anyways, there we were, me digging into my mutton varuval and Mary chatting away when who should rock up but Mark's Victor...who joined us. We didn't mind him so much - he's very much the strong silent type (though not so silent with us) and we chatted about gigs and Chianti and bounced cheques and new rulings by Bank Negara and other subjects of similar potency. He was struggling with his first glass of stout. Then he struggled through his second glass of stout. Finally he struggled through his third glass, at which point, we left.

Although it was later and later, we stayed on - and then this real creep - large ugly Indian thuggy looking guy with a posh Brit accent, to say nothing of snobby demeanour - joined us. Now, we don't like this guy. The only time I had shared a table with him, he hit on my friend Michelle-Ann, and continued to hit on her through the night until we decided to leave. A noxious bastard with pretensions to grandeur.

However, he unseated my bag (which was parked on a chair) and sat down, purportedly on his way out. And didn't leave. So we had to. He was contemptuous about my coffee table book. Nuff said!

Anyways, on the way back, Mary and I are at the BSC traffic lights chatting, when the Skoda in front of me starts backing up...alarmed, I honk. He keeps backing up until he bangs into me.

I mean to say what?

This red-faced man (he was drunk, not embarrassed) gets out of the car, waves his hands around a bit and asks if we are all OK. I say...what was that? He says, sorry, I put the car into the wrong gear. I checked out my front bumper - there wasn't any visible damage.

So I got back into my car. Mary said, that guy was drunk. Did you see how red his face was? I said, really? She said yes.

So we thought about how surreal everything had suddenly become. There we were, on an ordinary night, at an ordinary traffic light, making ordinary small talk, when suddenly a Skoda backs into us.

At work this morning...early. There's a staff meeting. Mary is on the bus, sleeping.

My colleague Nik is next to me, checking his facebook.

My life is constructed of all these strangely disparate moments. (Hope Zafrul, who is already 18 minutes late for the staff meeting he called, keeps it short. N'am saying?)