Balance

Chaos, chaos!

Sirening ambulances charging at high speed into head-on traffic, on the pretext that the patients were dying in their tanks!

Traffic slowed down painfully due to a singleton vehicle parked along the left lane by its selfish owner, leaving only one remaining pathetic lane for usage!

Drivers honking impatiently and not signalling appropriately when turning corners!

Old cracked roads designed in haphazard fashions, confusing our tired minds even more!

Nightmarish journeys through the city lines!

Why did I even fall in love with this city in the first place?!

***
A former woodcutter, now a geriatric patient in the ward, was opening up ten packets of sugar, while preparing his cuppa tea. A concerned male nurse of Korean descent told him politely that it would not be good for his health.

"F*** off, you bloody Wog! Go back to your own country!" His abrupt outburst stunned everyone in the dining room, hurting the well-meaning nurse tremendously. A serious warning was issued to him about such derogatory racial slurs.

History repeated itself today, this time with insults targeted towards a gentle elderly Romanian at the adjacent bed.

A leopard can never change its spots. Dementia was perhaps his only plausible excuse.

***
"Why can't the world unite? Why is there discrimination in this universe? Why are people so mean to their own human race?..."

Such were the woeful laments of Mr W.F, a melancholic gentleman in his late seventies and a true-blue Ozzie, from day one of his admission to the hospital. His mission in this life was to uphold justice, help our mankind and address grievances of the less fortunate. Tears welled in his eyes as he spoke of the numerous sufferings of the Aborigines and the sexual discrimination faced by his female colleagues in the past. He did not view himself as being pessimistic or depressed. He believed with strong convictions that the world can be salvaged one day.

Can we change the world, I asked him.

***
I think we need a balance.

"There is no austerity equal to a balanced mind, no happiness equal to contentment, no disease like covetousness, and no virtue like mercy."