Bird? Plane? No, It’s CamelMan!

There is nothing quite like the sense of helplessness that you experience when you’re stuck in a traffic jam in downtown Jakarta. It’s late at night. You’re hungry enough to be discomfited, but not quite enough to feel starvation pangs. The air-conditioner in your taxi is on. But the only reason you know that is because the LED is glowing green. You can feel the first drop of sweat begin to form under your skin. You try to make up your mind whether to feel irritated (which will give you something to do) or feel resigned (which may make the time pass less slowly). Either way you’re screwed because it’s at least another hour before you get to your hotel.

I bet all superheroes were conceived in traffic jams. I bet they’re born out of the frustrated fantasizing of their comic-book creators.

You’re motionless and everyone else is motionless around you (wouldn’t it be cool get out of the car and fly faster than a speeding bullet). There’s a space opening up ahead but another car is blocking your way (when I get really angry I turn green and chuck cars about like snowballs in a schoolyard). You’re past caring now and step on the accelerator to try and muscle into the empty space first. But you scrape the other car and brace yourself for a heated scream-off (I’ve got these metal spikes that when I ball up my fist they shoot out of my knuckles and I can impale you on them with a single upper-cut).

(Yes, I do think Wolverine is cool).

(Yes, parentheses are my thing right now).

(Yes, they are getting a little old).

(But indulge me for just a little longer).

You just know. When you get ushered into a taxi by a guy who tells you “If you want toilet then tell driver because there is traffic jam after the rain”, and you exchange looks with your fellow passenger who just bought a big glass of fruit juice, you just know it’s going to be a tense ride. Twenty minutes later while you’re whizzing through an empty highway, you want to not remark on the welcome absence of traffic. You realize that will jinx your trip. But the neural pathway that allows your brain to control your tongue was severed earlier in the day. It had succumbed to the sheer stress of telling a colleague (with infinite politeness) that he’d just demonstrated the intelligence of an earthworm with a head injury.

“Hey,” says your tongue, “this traffic isn’t so bad after all."

(“Idiot”, thinks your ever-eloquent brain, “idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot. Idiot.”)

Your fellow passenger gives you a dirty look and clenches his stomach muscles because he knows that you’ve just doomed him to a very tense car ride.

A long time later the two of you gratefully check in and go to your rooms. You now have a relaxed air.

He doesn’t.

One day you'll look back on this and laugh. But not this week.