the kitten

i read the post by aiden about a little kitten and how he couldn't find it after leaving it for a while. and i decided to write a comment about the kitten being possibly devoured by some cruel cats... heh heh... and as to be expected, it upset aiden... he is such a compassionate soul with such tender and loving heart for cute young things (men included!) haha... anyway, he sent me some smses this morning and asked why i was so mean... heh heh... 

but oh, the reason why i blog this entry is becos this whole episode about kittens reminded me of one regretful incident back in 1993 (or 1994?)... anyway, this was what happened. at that time, i was posted to bukit gombak and i would go for runs almost every evening. it also happened that one of my colleague, who was a commando, also loved to run and would join me for my runs. and this friend, just like all commandos i know, was a little salah in his head...

one evening, we decided to run at east coast park. and to avoid having to u-turn and run back the same track, what we planned was for me to park my car at one end of east coast, and we would then jump onto his car and he would drive all the way to the other end of east coast. this was with the intention to then run back to my car and that i would drive us both back to his car (make sense?)... don't ask me why, but that was how crazy we were about running... anyway, that was what we did. 

by the time i parked my car and he started driving, it was already 7-plus... the sky was getting dark. and as he drove, we talked and laughed. and to get to the other end of east coast park fast, he decided to take the east coast parkway (expressway) and exited at marine parade road. as he exit (at a speed of about 80-90km/hr), a kitten dashed out of the bushes onto the road. and once it dashed, it turned its head and saw our car coming, our headlights shining right into its eyes. and it froze right there in the middle of the road. the kitten was so small, but for that moment, its wide eyes and slit pupil was all i saw. and in the split second, the whole world came to a stand still. all sounds disappeared. it was just pure silence. and next thing i knew, the kitten's face disappear and i heard a cr-r-r-r-ack sound... 

my friend ran over the kitten. 

it was crushed under the wheels of the car... i was totally horrified. slowly, i came to my senses and my friend's chatter and laughter came back into focus. i asked if he realized what he just did... and jokingly, he said he did and that the kitten had dirtied his car... what the... it took me a while to recover. but that face of the kitten before it was crushed haunted me for quite a while... and frankly till this day, i still remembered that look of fear.