Night of Fear

I will never forget this incident . It was 0130 sunday morning 23rd June, we, that is my sister's family, me and my family were on our way home from Sentosa after a fishing spree at Siloso beach. We caught only one fish and also,would you believe it, a seahorse. My sister brought both to her home to Yishun.

We went our separate ways and had just reached home when my handphone rang. My brother-in-law's voice on the other line sounded desperate and urgent. His car had stalled, out of petrol and needs help. The four of us, my husband, daughter, son and myself headed to the nearest petrol station, bought a tin of petrol and sped at high speed to the location.

The scenario before our eyes was rather frightening. The car had stalled at a very dangerous position, at the very curve where vehicles comes in at high speed at the exit into Yishun. Fadzil, had positioned himself further down the curve some metres away from the car, directing traffic towards the centre of the road away from the car and his family, at the same time endangering himself. Meanwhile Zarina, my sister, was leaning against the railing hugging tightly Nana her two year old daughter, while clinging by her sides were Khairani, her four year old daughter and Khairi, her six year old son. I went straight to Zarina and when I touched her and felt her body trembling, I could feel the trauma and fear she's going through, poor thing. According to her, the children had cried earlier but when she told them to recite some simple prayers, they cooled down. My daughter Ain took charge of the two kids and consoled them.

Hairi, my son, took over Fadzil's position, directing oncoming traffic in the same manner, I did likewise only much closer to the car where my husband was helping Fadzil to refuel. Already we were at a precarious spot with the traffic zooming past non-stop, at times too dangerously close made my heart missed a beat. I feared for our safety, anything could happen any moment and to make matters worse, Fadzil was unable to fill his tank because the nozzle was short. "Oh no...how, where to find a funnel with a long nozzle right now?" These thoughts were playing in my mind, when suddenly Honey (that's how I called my husband) had an idea. He took the top part of his fishing rod, run it through the funnel then positioned it into the tank, that way the funnel will not shake Fadzil then poured in the petrol without any hitch. Suddenly a LTA truck appeared and stopped a few metres from Hairi. The driver approached us and enquired if we needed help. Seeing that everything was under control he proceeded to control the traffic while we were preparing to leave. After exchanging words an salaams we then went our separate ways heading home.

We felt relieved and were thankful there were no other mishap. I reminded both Hairi and Ain let this be a lesson, to ensure their tank is always full, you never know how far you'll be travelling.