In Case of Emergency by Rodrigo Dela Peña, Jr.
In Case of Emergency
Who will you call and what will you say, given
almost no time, just a minute, a few seconds
to ask for help, to summon the ambulance, to bid
farewell? Are you going to wait with only the sound
of your beating heart to mark the passing of the night
before someone finally arrives? Or will you run
through the neighbourhood, banging on doors and windows,
screaming bloody murder while everyone else watches
a soap opera and hunkers down to a meal of fish and rice?
Will you recognize the face of danger when it appears,
the glint of its eyes beckoning you to come closer,
come hither? What will you risk and to what end?
Will it be enough to escape unscathed, to flee from
the scene of accident or crime, to keep your faculties
intact when the world turns on you? How long can you stand
the wind, the storm resolute in its will to blow down
everything in its path? And how long can you bear
the walls of your life closing in? How long?
In Case of Emergency
There it is: the rush and urgency
of all that is unbidden, unforeseen.
Get ready in case of emergency.
Welcome the increasing frequency
of disasters shown on the TV screen,
the breaking news of rush and urgency.
Then feel the tight grip of anxiety
as tragedy hits closer to home: a scene
of wreckage after an emergency.
Gone are thousands, gone their legacy
washed and carried away by the ocean.
Let it sink in, the rush and urgency.
Brutal fact: no amount of currency
can bring them back, undo their final scream.
Are we ever ready in case of emergency?
The world is fickle, prone to catastrophe.
And you are next, or almost next in line.
Feel it simmer: the rush and urgency.
Get ready in case of emergency.
In Case of Emergency
Listen: sirens wailing, lights blinking red and blue, the ambulance wending its way through the snarl of traffic. Where is it going and whom is it for? Too late. Always, it is too late, inevitable and thus expected, the way the body must fail at one point, the heart ceasing to beat, the lungs collapsing. Acrid smell of smoke and diesel, of something burning: somewhere a fire blazes as the sky gradually darkens. Pedestrian noise buries the faint scream of the ambulance, almost gone but always insistent. Tragedy has passed you by and you are grateful, relieved that this time, you are spared, believing that the worst is now over. It is over; it is not over. We have been so mistaken.
Rodrigo V. Dela Peña Jr. has been living in Singapore since 2011. His poems have been published in the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Kartika Review: An Asian American Journal, The Guardian, and Singapore-based anthologies such as A Luxury We Can Not Afford, The Curious Fruit, and In Transit (upcoming). He has won in various poetry competitions, including British Council Singapore's Writing the City.
Born in Melaka, Malaysia, 1980, Jau Goh currently works and lives in Singapore. Jau is a mandala artist who started painting in 2011. An architect by training, she is interested in spatial composition in her work and prefers clean lines. She is concerned with producing works of beauty, joy and harmony, and hopes to spread those feelings with her art.
