Triggered Memory

It is strange how sometimes a comment, a word, a matter, a situation, an item, an object can trigger memories long locked up in the hidden depth of your mind.

On my way back to work from lunch with a good friend, one such memory of mine was triggered by the metal grating over the drain. I started laughing. Good friend gave me a strange look. Lol.

The incident happened when I was 5 years old. I was then staying at a private flat in the Orchard area. After kindergarten, I would walk up this steep slope, which was a one-lane vehicle exit, to reach my block of flat which was on a little hill top, accompanied by my old servant. There was this big metal drain grating right in the middle of the road, half-way up the slope. Everyday, I would walk on it.

Then one fateful day, I stepped on it and my right leg went through the grating and was stuck fast, up to my knee! My old servant tried pulling my leg out but to no avail. It was stuck fast and she was causing me more pain than anything. She called for help from the neighbours. While she was doing that, a car starting coming down the slope towards me. The day was just getting from bad to worse - my leg stuck in the middle of the road and now a car was coming. I was freaking out major time! Thank goodness, the car saw me and reversed back. Phew. Soon, I had a small crowd of people around me and I felt like the Sword in the Stone in King Arthur! They were taking turns at trying to pull my leg out. Oi, OI, Pain, PAIN, that's my leg you are pulling!!

Someone had called the fire brigade. I thought finally, I am going to be rescued. And then as if the day couldn't get any worse, it DID. I saw a fireman walking towards me with an axe in his hand. "AAHHHHH!!!! He is going to chop off my leg,", that thought went through my mind. Actually, I verbalised that thought at the top of my voice. I was screaming and crying and just refused to let the fireman near me with that axe! I was fighting my hardest despite one leg being stuck in the grating. Lol. (That's why The Shining gave me the shivers when I watched it - Jack Nicholson and his axe!) I really can't remember what happened after that, but they managed to get my leg out again, in ONE PIECE. LOL.

That day was just pure DRAMA for me. Hahaha. Well, it is pretty funny and hilarious when I think back on it now. But it certainly wasn't so on that day when I was 5. But how did I fall through if I had been walking on it everyday? You see, that day, I was walking and at the same time, reading a book! Hahaha. So morale of the story as my good friend concluded is, "Never read and walk, especially over a grating". Lol.