Slow Down. We're Moving Too Fast

"Slow down. We're moving too fast"

Crows circled overhead as the red jaguar swerved to make the turning. They seemed to foreshadow some kind of danger as the car sped on in its powerful momentum. The woman, visibly shaken, told her husband, "Slow down, we're moving too fast". The man ignored his wife's warning, confident of his skills at the wheel. But he failed to notice the van that was heading from his right straight towards their direction.

By the time the man stepped on the brakes, it was too late. There was a split second of horrifying silence before the full impact of the collision sent the jaguar reeling out of control. Accompanied by the ear piercing screams of his wife in the background, the sound of crushed metal and broken glass completed the bitter symphony of tragedy as the car overturned and came to a screeching halt against a willow tree.

The man vaguely recalled looking at a shattered windscreen, hearing the distant sirens of an ambulance, just before darkness enveloped his vision...

Paul opened his weary eyes into a world of white. He imagined he was in heaven, but a deep voice jostled him back to reality. "How're you feeling?" Paul squinted his eyes to see who had spoken. A bespectacled man with a long white overcoat stood beside him. It took him quite a while to realise the man was a doctor. "I'm feeling kinda dizzy" Paul replied. "It's alright, you should get some more rest. You have been unconscious for nearly four hours", the doctor said, before stepping to the front of the ward and scribbling down some notes. Paul let his tired head sink deep into the pillow. As he began to analyse the situation he was in, all of a sudden the horrible images of the car accident replayed in his mind.

He heard the screaming again.

Paul's chest felt like it was crushed as he sat up and frantically looked around the room. His wife Jane was not here. The discovery of his wife's absence from his side brought him into a fit of desperation. Where was she?

He painfully signaled to the doctor to come. By the time the doctor managed to decipher his rumblings of "where is my wife?", Paul was coughing badly and had broken into a sweat. His heart was in a flutter, pulsating vigorously as he waited impatiently for the doctor's reply. But all he got was a sullen expression and a "you should get some more rest first". "NO! I want to see her n-" Paul barely finished his sentence before he choked on his spittle. He was shaking all over. Is this my body? He thought. I feel so weak. "Alright...follow me" The doctor's words brought relief to his ears. With great care Paul was put on a wheelchair and led by a nurse out of the room, following behind the doctor. They stopped in front of a large black door when the doctor said, " wait outside here". The doctor went in. The next few minutes that Paul waited felt like hours to him before the doctor finally came out to bring him inside. But as he entered the small room he was distraught to see that the person sitting in front of the desk was not his wife but another man with a white overcoat. "This is Doctor Sullivan, he would be the surgeon in charge of your wife's operation", the doctor who was with him earlier said, before quietly making his exit. The words rang continuously in his head. As Paul's mind slowly and heart achingly digested the words, Doctor Sullivan began his explanation. "Your wife has been critically injured during the car accident earlier and she requires a major operation on her brain membrane to stop an internal bleeding. Unfortunately, she has only a ten-percent chance of survival. I'm really sorry"

Paul could only stare at the man who had just sentenced his wife to death so nonchalantly. The walls of the small room seemed to close in on him, choking him. He could hardly breathe.

"I think some fresh air will be good for you, and you still need to recuperate", Doctor Sullivan advised as he called for the nurse to take Paul away. Paul was still in a daze. He tried to convince himself that the doctor's words were false, that this was all a dream. But his mind told him otherwise.

Paul suddenly found himself in the hospital garden, being wheeled by the nurse up a path that meandered to a small hill. When they reached the top, he saw that the hill had a panoramic view of the whole garden. All the lush greenery and breathtaking sights of nature were entrenched in Paul's vision. He could see old folks and other people in wheelchairs like himself, moving around and enjoying the sights and sounds of nature. This peaceful scene did little to ease the burden in his heart. On the contrary, it further emphasized the grave situation his wife was in. He was appalled at how happy everyone looked. Why isn't anyone mourning? Doesn't anyone know Jane might not live the day? Paul screamed in his head.

"Oh isn't the view lovely!", the nurse's high-pitched voice suddenly pierced into his thoughts. "Hey don't worry I'm sure your wife would be alright".

I hope she will, Paul calmed himself. He hoped he will have the chance to talk to her, that when he sees her again she would not be a cold, lifeless body but warm in his arms smiling and laughing. Paul came to the chilling realization that if Jane died before he could talk to her, he would never get the chance to say sorry to her for always driving too fast, for not heeding her advice. It was his fault that her life now hangs in a balance, he thought with a pang of regret. If she died, he would never get he chance to make up for the tongue-lashing he assaulted her with when they quarreled the night before. To buy her a bouquet of flowers and kiss her on the lips while she is forced to forgive him. They had quarreled over a plunge in business in the advertising company they shared. But the issue seemed so trivial now to

Paul.

Why did I shout at her that day? Why did I feel like slapping her? Paul knew he was very serious about his job. He hardly let anything interfere with him clinching a new deal or finishing a project. It was probably due to the fact that his unhappy childhood was filled with failures. He had come from a poor family and his alcoholic dad often beat him up. Paul was the scapegoat who bore the penalty of the failings of the whole family and thus brought up a hard man. It made him study relentlessly, getting top honours and quickly climbing his way up the ranks of