when human life goes on sale

She was a young woman of Chinese nationality. Single, maybe. Married, maybe. Alone, crossing the street, probably in a hurry, probably not.

But, by the time I saw her, she was lying on the middle of the street in a bloodied mess. Minutes later, she was lifted up onto a white sketcher by two uniformed paramedics. The trams had ground to a halt, traffic was building up. Huge crowds of by-passers had gathered, police were at the scene talking on their walkie-talkies, an ambulance was parked nearby.

The crowds were speculating whether the victim was alive or dead. As she was being carried onto a higher trolley, there is an audible gasp among the crowd, and some girls moved away. There, right on the ground, was a huge mass of blood. Thick, gory, horrifying. I saw her clearly from where I was standing. Her eyes seemed to be open, but I couldn't be sure, because her entire face was soaked in blood. I wonder what she must have been thinking, if she was doing any thinking at all. And, then she lifted up a bloodied hand to touch her bloodied face.

Traffic slowly built up, as trams after trams ground to a halt. Annoyed and irritated passengers alighted from the trams. Tram drivers with perplexed looks on their faces. I know what were on their minds. What were causing the delay?

I just wonder, in this uncaring society where a dead female body can go undiscovered for six months, if they knew what happened, would they still be as annoyed, would they still be as irritated as what was causing the delay just because they were in a hurry to go home or meet their friends? And, then I imagine the media coverage splashed all over newspapers tomorrow, which would unfailingly mention how many trams were delayed as a result, and for how long. And, then I realized, how cheap human life had become, at the expense of a modern society.