4 Seconds

Every morning when I am going to the office from the Lavendar train station, I would always need to cross this 10 metre wide North Bridge Road in 20 seconds. That’s because the traffic light has a digital timer counting down from the 'green walking man' to the 'red standing man'.

One day, I decided to challenge JY to cross this 10 metre wide road in 4 seconds for no reason. It would be an impressive feat for her especially when she stands at an impressive height of 1.58m, which means she didn’t have long walking legs. Unfortunately she really took up the challenge for no reason...

I guess her pride was at stake and she needed to prove it to a 1.71m man who is 0.13m taller than her. In anyway she doesn’t believe I am that tall and claims that I am only as tall as her father, which I suspect she must have put her father and my photo side by side to measure. Similarly I also don’t believe she is that short because I think she should be 2cm shorter.

The day came when JY and I were going for lunch and we were to cross this 10 metre wide North Bridge Road chasm. This was her chance to prove it. We waited for the digital timer to count down till 4 seconds remaining and then walked across. She seemingly float through the road in 4 seconds coolly and doesn’t seem to be making much of an effort to walk fast. While I was like ‘how come I can’t finish crossing it in 4 seconds’ and was like going to sprint. We must have looked silly in front of those drivers waiting for us to cross the road, I am quite sure...

After this silly incident, every time when I have to cross this North Bridge Road, I would always look at the timer and think of ‘4 seconds’, because I knew there was once I played a silly little game with a 1.58m woman who has proved to me that short walking legs is not a barrier to crossing a road in 4 seconds.

Not too long ago, JY and I were crossing this North Bridge Road again and we talk about crossing it in 4 seconds again. I told her the digital timer is gone and I suspect the traffic police knew about the dangerous little game we were playing and took it away……

(The digital timer is actually still there, I really thought it was gone that day)