We must continune the tradition as our forefathers have....The sparrow fluttered about in its cage at the backseat of John’s taxi. John signed and stopped at a red light. Father was ridiculous. He had asked him to free the sparrow. Freeing of the sparrow was supposed to bring good luck to the household. This tradition had been carried out by John’s father and most likely by all of his ancestors too.
“You must release the sparrow by 6.00pm” his father had warned. “Otherwise something bad will happen.” John had always rolled his eyes at this but had agreed to the job because of the fact that he did not want his father going about thinking that they will be cursed.
John was still grumbling when a middle aged man flagged his taxi down. He was annoyed. “Why couldn’t the man see that he had a "busy" sign on top of his cab?” he pulled over anyway. Typical customers usually called the company complain if you ignored them. The man opened the door at the cab.
“Excuse me? Could you please send my father to this address in Toa Payoh?” he passed John a piece of paper. John shoved it away.
“Excuse me sir, I’m running short of time. Its 5.30pm now and I have something to do before six. Could you please call another cab?”
The man look worried, “Please sir, its urgent.” John thought for a moment.
“Well…” the man shoved a fifty dollar note into John’s hand.
“Here take this. Keep the change. My sister will come down to fetch him.” Then he was gone.
John got out and helped the old man into the taxi, and moved the sparrow away to make space. It fluttered again, weakly.
John was not sure if it would hold out till six.
He got back in the driver’s seat and drove off. The location was rather isolated and it took fifteen minutes of trial and error for him to find it.
He looked at his watch. It was exactly six.
Cursing under his breath he stepped on the gas. Rushing through orange and red lights and narrow accidents he drove on.
Time kept ticking on. His father was surely going to scold him for this.
As he cut through the traffic, he did not pay attention to all the honks and bleeps he was getting. Then, his senses overloaded and his vision turned black.
The first thing he felt was pain and more pain. He tried to open his eyes but the light blinded him. Slowly, they adjusted to the brightness and he began to take notice of his surroundings. He realized his was on scratchy white sheets in an all to white room with his parents by his bedside.
“Where am I?” he mumbled. However his only a scratchy sound come out.
“You were in a traffic accident. The passenger in your taxi died on the spot. You did not free the bird did you?”
John shook his head in response.
His father’s face turned pale as a look of pure horror flashed across his head. He walked off muttering something about...”It’s the curse..”
John finally understood why his father had insisted that he free the bird exactly at six on the last day of the month. There was really a curse on his family and he had caused an innocent old man to die….
End
(User) posted @ 11:23 AM
The User
We are group 5.
Like others, we love school.
We come from kranji sec school.
Loves
We love english.
We love ms fazlin.
We love being retarded.
Members
Joyce
Kiayi
Subhaan
Foong Ming [Cat]
Weiting
Li Qi
