In Which A Life Is Saved

Related update: new artwork.

As usual, click to enlarge.

Done in two hours. Won't do colours for this one. Looks alot like last year's work right? I hate last year's work.

I wrote this in school today.

I'm in double physics right now. All the windows are shut and you wouldn't believe what's happening outside. There's a real life drama unfolding on the roof of the school next door.

On the roof of MBS there is a man. He's been sitting there for... what? More than an hour now. None of us know who he is or how he got there. We all think he's a jumper. The police and the fire brigade are here, they've been around for some time but they haven't done much.

He doesn't look like a student. Some of us think he could be a teacher, or a janitor.

Half the school is watching this. The other half probably wishes they could.

This morning, when the teachers were having their meeting, I went to 5M and I found some people standing at the window, looking out at the other school. There was a man sitting on the roof. Sarah got a message from Karen. She ran out to the stairwell with Wye Peng. I followed them and Suat behind me. We watched the activity for a while, but nothing really happened. Sarah took some pictures with her phone.

We went back to class after awhile. Then the firemen started to spray water at him in powerful jets. I don't know what they were hoping to achieve, but he almost slipped once or twice. Maybe they had a net ready, but it didn't seem like a really smart thing to do.

There's a shout from outside. Siva can't control the class. The windows are all open and we're watching intently. There's a cop on the roof, talking to the man. All of MBS is gathered outside to watch. The firemen have surrounded the man with a loose circle of ropes and ladders. There isn't enough to catch him if he jumps or falls. The firemen are slowing closing in on him even as the cop inches closer, trying to get him to talk and offering him a smoke.

The atmosphere is electric. No one can look away. Even Siva's given up on teaching. He's standing at the windows with the rest of us. The policeman's reached the jumper, who finally stopped moving away from him. He's smoking and the cop is talking to him. They're real close. Nothing's happened in a while. People are starting to get bored, they're moving away...

There are two firemen on the roof. They're moving towards him. Now they're putting a safety line around him. It looks ominously almost like a noose. The assembled crowd is clapping and shouting. The four of them are sitting together. They're fastening the rope onto him. There's a lot of movement... is he struggling? He's moving towards the ladder. The cop is holding tight to him. Too bad all our phones are with the teachers.

They got him on the ladder and he's coming down slowly. There's a lot of noise from the MBS side. He's reached the first floor safely. The crowds disperse.

It's all over.

The cops took him away in a squad car. We still don't know who he was, or why he was there. But there's been a lot of speculation.

Guan Xiong: Kumaran your father on the roof!

Not so much speculation as mean-spirited humor then. There was a certain detachment in the way we watched the man as his life dangled on the line.

Kind of like the way you'd watch American Idol. You know the contestants are all real people but at that moment, when you're safe at home and they're out there throwing their dignity to the dogs, they seem like a completely different species.

There's a small, mean part of you that wants to see them burn.

So it was with the man on the roof. Personally I've got no ambition to watch a man die, but there were people shouting at him to jump.

You all know what I'm talking about.

And I don't really have any to blog about right now. I'll say some stuff about the dances and all in abit.