Stuck in a Candy Crush

“Traffic is at a crawl from Jalan Tun Razak heading towards Ampang due to an accident. On MRR2, expect delays from both directions between the Kuari Flyover and Pandan Indah.”

An ambulance passed them some twenty minutes ago and the same traffic update had been reported forty minutes ago. In one modest red Viva, a woman was staring balefully at her radio, listening to the endless ads that followed which had no relevance in her life. She needed a song to get through the traffic jam.

In a black Honda behind her, a man was playing Candy Crush on his phone for the past ten minutes since he had set his car to Neutral because the long stretch of road was a parking lot. He had three moves left and he still hadn’t been able to finish breaking all the jellies. Soon (or maybe very much later), he would return home to a nephew who insisted he was a failure of an adult for being beaten by a fifteen-year-old.

The woman inspected her reflection on her rearview mirror; the make up she had carefully put on in the morning to make her not look like a zombie was almost completely gone, revealing the tired lines on her face. She looked over at the car next to her, with children being restless in the backseat. A little girl was midway through climbing the back of the driver’s seat, mussing her father’s hair.

She didn’t stare at them for too long, because that would be creepy. She let out a loud sigh as an unfamiliar song played on the radio; one that she didn’t know the words to. One hand went over to her phone on the passenger’s seat. Its battery was too low and she was too paranoid that an emergency might happen and she would need to call someone. Talk about phone dependency.

The man had to restart his Candy Crush level. There was a shitty song playing on the radio but he didn’t bother changing the station because he was optimistic enough to think that a better song would be played later. He was so occupied that he didn’t notice that the car in front of him was already moving, leaving a space between them. It wasn’t until the lorry behind honked  that he was jerked back into reality and, hastily, he moved his car to the front before anyone could slip into the lane.

Idiot, was what she thought when the Honda seemed to snap out of his reverie to close the gap between them. In fact, it was so close that she could see him through her rearview mirror.

The man was about to resume his game when his phone blacked out. “NO”. He groaned, throwing his phone aside and knowing that he couldn’t rely on it anymore to cure him of the boredom being stuck in a jam.

Deciding that the driver behind her was a bit weird, she moved just a little bit to the front. She leaned slightly over to the window, staring out at the opposite lane, where traffic was smooth, and wished she was elsewhere.

He was doing the same thing, and he saw the driver’s reflection through her side mirror. It was unintentional, and while he couldn’t see her clearly, he could relate to the expression on her face. Boredom. He was bored too. Everyone in this faux parking lot were.

She didn’t enjoy knowing that the Honda behind her was close. Glancing at the rearview mirror, she noticed that he had his gaze elsewhere. Except, a couple of seconds later, his gaze moved towards her, and she looked away even though she knew he couldn’t see her. What are you looking at?

It felt as if he had been found out, and automatically, a nonchalant expression entered his face, and he resisted the urge to laugh as he noticed how the woman moved uncomfortably in her seat, her eyes focused straight ahead. He was almost tempted to wave.

Unwillingly, her eyes moved to the rearview mirror again, and she saw him raise his hand in a small wave. Hello, I guess, she silently thought, almost tempted to smile, realizing how ridiculously bored they were.

He knew she could see him, just like how he could see the guy behind him frowning, a cigarette hanging at the corner of his mouth. Noticing how she moved her head up to look at him, he grinned mischievously as she did so, pretending to yawn loudly and extending his hands to show how long the traffic jam was.  

Was that supposed to be funny? She rolled her eyes as she leaned against the window again.

So that wasn’t funny, he chuckled to himself.

Miraculously, traffic began to move, though not too much. Momentarily, she forgot about the Honda. But she found herself at a standstill again, telling herself to be patient and ignoring the rumblings of her hungry stomach.  A song started playing on the radio and she half-laughed, half-cringed. It was One Direction.

He hated this song. Hated it. His niece liked to put it on repeat and blast it on her laptop all day. It was a ridiculously catchy song and he pressed the button to switch the station only to have

“Cauuuuseee all I neeeeed is a beautyyy and the beeeaaat.”

Lesser of two evils would be One Direction. He switched it back.

Three minutes and twenty five seconds. She started singing along; she didn’t even know the words completely but she was bored and she needed to entertain herself. No one was looking, anyway, so no one knew that a grown adult was bobbing her head and singing along to a band loved by millions of teenage girls. “You don’t know you’re beautiful!” she sang out loud, pointing up at the rearview mirror and at the same time looking at it.

He was dancing along to the song, because no one could see or listen to him. He wasn’t in the office where he had to put on a front and please his boss and his clients, where he couldn’t afford to be embarrassing. Right now, he could do whatever he wanted because time stands still when you are in a traffic jam. It was just him.

Or maybe not, because there was also her.

She was laughing at him because she knew that they were listening to the same song. And when it ended, she noticed that he was smiling up at her. She smiled back, even if he couldn’t see.

The cars moved, and the spell was broken. Time was no longer at a standstill.

She glanced at the rearview mirror again, hoping to see the black Honda.

He was gone.

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