Driving back at about 2 AM last night after an Emerald Hill drinking session, I spotted the car that had come to a complete standstill ahead of me. The lights were on. Nobody seemed to be stepping out, nor was there any sign that the car would get moving soon. I looked aside as I overtook the motionless vehicle, and I saw the driver's head resting on the steering wheel. He had just fallen asleep in the middle of the road, for god's sake! How on earth to do that?! Sure he was drunk. Of course, I would say. So in his condition, I could imagine him falling asleep when waiting at the traffic lights, for instance. But not at a random spot in the middle of the road. It was a surreal image in the nightly silence: he and his car were like struck by lightning and frozen at a random point of time.
I stopped my car in front of his, stepped out and walked back. There he was, alone in his car, sleeping peacefully on his improvised pillow. I knocked on the window. No reaction. I tried to open the door but it was locked from inside. I knocked again, harder this time. But still Sleeping Beauty did not move a single inch. I knocked even harder.
All of a sudden he woke up with a shock. He opened the door, stepped out and just like he would have done if we would have been at a posh cocktail reception in a five-star hotel ballroom in stead of being at this deserted residential street in the middle of the night, he greets me formally, shakes my hand and says "Good evening, how do you do?". Just as if nothing had happened. Hahaha.
Strangely enough, he didn't seem that drunk actually. But of course, the subjective impression of how drunk a person is can be very misleading at times. And the fact that 10 seconds ago he was still in dreamland did not plead in his favour. My sense of responsibility made me suggest driving him home. He refused, claiming that he would manage to go back on his own. I insisted and asked him where he lived. Without going all too much into geographical details and without showing in the Singapore street directory, let me just put it this way: switching on the GPS system in BMW would have prevented him from getting lost in this area of town, which was totally out of the direction where he was supposed to end up. Or perhaps the invisible lady giving him the GPS instructions had fallen asleep as well...
I stopped my car in front of his, stepped out and walked back. There he was, alone in his car, sleeping peacefully on his improvised pillow. I knocked on the window. No reaction. I tried to open the door but it was locked from inside. I knocked again, harder this time. But still Sleeping Beauty did not move a single inch. I knocked even harder.
All of a sudden he woke up with a shock. He opened the door, stepped out and just like he would have done if we would have been at a posh cocktail reception in a five-star hotel ballroom in stead of being at this deserted residential street in the middle of the night, he greets me formally, shakes my hand and says "Good evening, how do you do?". Just as if nothing had happened. Hahaha.
Strangely enough, he didn't seem that drunk actually. But of course, the subjective impression of how drunk a person is can be very misleading at times. And the fact that 10 seconds ago he was still in dreamland did not plead in his favour. My sense of responsibility made me suggest driving him home. He refused, claiming that he would manage to go back on his own. I insisted and asked him where he lived. Without going all too much into geographical details and without showing in the Singapore street directory, let me just put it this way: switching on the GPS system in BMW would have prevented him from getting lost in this area of town, which was totally out of the direction where he was supposed to end up. Or perhaps the invisible lady giving him the GPS instructions had fallen asleep as well...
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