“Market Vendor, this is Peter Griffith, the funeral agency man. I am expecting a call from you!”
Not the kind of message you want to hear when you just wake up incoherent, still trying to work out how long yuh was asleep, decide to check yuh calls and hear a funeral director saying he expecting a call from you. De thing is you wake up kinda stupidy, so see yuh boy, check pulse, dat like it wukking. Heart? Racing like a demon. Feet li’l numb but life dey and de boy telling yuh it is wee wee time.
I know de Vendor was alive and kicking. Pete muh brudder, in future iffing you looking fuh de Vendor get your nice-looking personal assistant to mek de call and tell she to use de name of your limo service as a call back, not yours and definitely not yuh title funeral director!
Unfortunately, not everybody as lucky as de Vendor. Tek, fuh example, a very nice young man who I know fuh years wukking in de law offices of Patterson Cheltenham, QC, and Sir Richard Cheltenham, QC. He woulda wake up a morning recently, get dressed nattily as usual, ensure that he son was ready fuh school, send off the young man and he woulda then walk through Bridgetown and up Whitepark road to he workplace.
I assume he woulda talk to people along the way, maybe went to lunch and come back by midday and was probably mekking all kinds of plans fuh he future and he young son. Sometime in de early afternoon while running an errand for de boss and returning to work along Whitepark road, he time in dis world came to an abrupt and cruel end and he son world and de world of he mother and family turn to calamity.
He woulda never know what hit he – one minute happily going along the road walking, den he yuh body flying through the air courtesy of a public transport bus that was overtaking another one and he just happen to be in de way.
Life is a precious thing and recently I can’t help but notice how many accidents and fatalities we got involving public transport vehicles. Days after Neil Rose met he untimely death we had a mass casualty accident involving another public service vehicle. Thirty-seven people injured and by de weekend yet another one turn over and 12 people escape.
Everybody does see de madness pun de roads every day with the maxis, minibuses and recently even some Transport Board buses getting into the act, brekking traffic rules wid impunity, driving through red lights, driving reckless, speeding, stopping wherever, blocking roads, playing loud music and yet men that reportedly got over 100 convictions can be driving public service vehicles?
It is only an insane person that would do the same thing over and over and expect a different result. We need to change how we deal wid them. We need to hurt the drivers and de owners iffing it is true dat the drivers does drive reckless because dem have to deliver certain amount of money to owners by a certain time everyday and then earn money fuh themselves. When they brek de law, impound de vehicle as evidence.
Hurt de owners and de drivers!
Neil, rest in peace!
I, Market Vendor, gone fuh now. You have a blessed and a wonderful day, yuh hear?
