menace to society

two times in three days i have accidentally injured a fellow citizen. the first was on the mrt when the train came to an abrupt halt and i trod - hard - on a poor lady's sandalled foot. the second - and jianyi will go into schadenfreude-induced rapture reading this - happened not two hours ago in ang mo kio library. i was leaning against a bookshelf trying to decide whether i wanted to give j.g. ballard a second chance when this young kid, shoulder-high, came hurtling around the corner. he was being chased or something, was not looking where he was going, and clotheslined himself violently on my outstretched arm before I had any chance to react. went down like sack of turnips, flat on back, very reminiscent of three stooges. i instinctively (and rather idiotically, in retrospect), started apologising but he was too busy seeing stars to notice, so i quietly crept away to look at bridge books while he recovered (and found something by stewart that i had not read before: his writing is funny even if his concepts aren't the best).