"Don't move anything! Don't go over there. Leave everything as it is!"
A crowd several layers deep has surrounded the front of the bus. Only one person is curious enough to lift the twisted wreck of the bicycle. The bell rings as he puts it back down.
"I clearly sounded the horn and braked! Everyone saw it; he was intent on getting himself killed by charging into the bus – how can you blame me?" It is the strained voice of the driver trying to explain, but no one takes any notice.
"You can all be witnesses, all of you saw it!"
"Move aside! Move aside – move aside, all of you!" A policeman with a big hat emerges from the crowd.
"We've got to hurry to save the child's life! Quick, stop a car and get the child to a hospital!" It is a man's voice.
A young man in a coffee-colored leather jacket runs to the line in the middle of the road, waving an arm. A small Toyota sedan sounds its horn nonstop to make its way through the pedestrians who have spilled onto the roadway. Next, one of those 130 light trucks comes along, and it stops. Inside the windows of the bus involved in the accident, passengers are bickering with the conductress. Another trolley bus pulls up behind. The doors of the one in front open and the passengers surge out, blocking the trolley bus that has just arrived. There is a loud clamor of voices.
The singing on the stereo is drowned out.
Blood is still dripping, and there is a stench of blood in the air.
" Waaa.. ." The child's repressed wailing finally breaks out.
"It's a good sign!"
"It's still alive!"
There are sighs of happy relief. As the wailing grows louder, people also come back to life: it is as if they have been liberated. They then all rush to join the crowd surrounding the body.
Screaming sirens. A police car with flashing blue lights on the roof has arrived, and the crowd parts as four policemen quickly get out. Two of them are wielding batons, and people stand back immediately.
Traffic has come to a standstill and long queues of vehicles are waiting at both ends of the street. Honking horns have replaced the din of voices. One of the policemen goes to the middle of the road and waves his white-gloved hands to direct the traffic.
The police summon the conductress from the second trolley bus. She tries at first to make excuses, then reluctantly takes the child from the middle-aged woman and gets into the 130 light truck. A white glove signals. The truck drives off, taking with it the child's shrill screams and wailing.
As the police wielding batons shout at them, the onlookers move back to form a rectangle that includes the twisted wreck of the bicycle.
What is happening to the driver can now be seen from this side of the road. He is wiping off the sweat with his cotton cap. A policeman is questioning him. He takes out his driver's license in its red plastic folder, and the policeman confiscates it. He immediately protests.
"Why are you making excuses? If you've run over the man, then you've run over him!" A youth pushing a bicycle yells out.
The conductress wearing sleeve-protectors comes out of the bus and rebukes the youth. "He was trying to get himself killed. The horn was sounding and the bus had braked, yet the man wouldn't give way. He just went under the bus."
"The man was in the middle of the road and had a child with him. It was broad daylight, so he must have seen him!" someone in the crowd says angrily.
"What does it matter to drivers like him if they run over someone? He won't have to pay for it with his life." This is said with derision.
"What a tragedy. If he didn't have the child with him, he would have got across long ago!"
"Is there any hope for the man?"
"His brain came out?"
"I just heard this plop – "
"You heard it?"
"Yes, it went plop – "
"Stop all this talk!"
"Ai, life's like that, a person can die just like that…"
"He's crying."
"Who?"
"The driver."
The driver, sitting on his haunches with his head down, has covered his eyes with his cap.
"He didn't do it deliberately…"
"If this had happened to anyone, they would…"
"The man had a child with him? What happened to the child? What happened to the child?" someone who has just arrived asks.
"The child wasn't hurt, it was very lucky."
"Luckily the child was saved."
"The man was killed!"
"Were they father and child?"
"Why did he have to hook a buggy to his bicycle? It's hard enough not to have an accident even with just one person on a bicycle."
"And he'd just picked up the child from kindergarten to take home."
"Kindergartens are hopeless, they won't let you leave children for a whole day!"
"You're lucky if you can get into one."
"What's there to look at! From now on, if you run without looking across the road – " A big hand drags away a child who is trying to squeeze between people in the crowd.
The Hong Kong star has stopped singing. People are crowded on the steps of the radio repair shop.
Red lights flashing, the ambulance has arrived. As medical personnel in white carry the body to the ambulance, the people in doorways of all the shops stand on their toes. The fat cook wearing an apron from a small eatery nearby has also come out to watch.
"What happened? Was there an accident? Was someone killed?"
"It was father and son, one of them is dead."
"Which of them died?"
"The old man!"
"What about the son?"
"Unhurt."
"That's shocking! Why didn't he pull his father out of the way?"
"It was the father who had pushed his son out of the way!"
"Each generation is getting worse, the man was wasting his time bringing up the son!"
"If you don't know what happened, then don't crap on."
"Who's crapping on?"
"I wasn't trying to start an argument with you."
"The child was carried away."
"Was there a small child as well?"
Others have just arrived.
"Do you mind not shoving?"
"Did I shove you?"
"What's there to look at? Move on! Everyone move on!"
On the outer fringes of the crowd people are being arrested. Traffic security personnel with red armbands have arrived and they are more savage than the police.
The driver, who is pushed into the police car, turns and tries to struggle, but the door shuts. People start to walk away and others get on their bicycles and leave. The onlookers thin out, but people keep arriving, stopping their bicycles or coming down off the pavement. The second trolley bus leads a long line of sedans, vans, jeeps, and big limousines slowly past the buggy with the torn red-and-blue checkered shade in the gutter on this side of the road. Most of the people standing on shop steps have either gone inside or left, and the long stream of cars has passed. At the center of what has become a small crowd in the middle of the road, two policemen are taking measurements with a tape measure, while another makes notes in a little notebook. The blood under the wheels of the bus has begun to congeal and is turning black. In the trolley bus with its doors open, the conductress sits by a window staring blankly across to this side of the street. On the other side of the street, the faces in the windows of an approaching trolley bus look out and some people even poke their heads out. People have finished work: it is peak traffic time, and there are even more pedestrians and people riding bicycles. However, shouts from the police and traffic security personnel stop people from going to the middle of the road.
"Was there an accident?"
"Was someone killed?"
"Must have been, look at all that blood."
"The day before, there was an accident on Jiankang Road. A sixteen-year-old was taken to the hospital, but they couldn't save him – they said he was an only son."