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Friday, January 20, 2006
[Black Friday...]
My Dad and I have this routine. Sometimes when I'm home on a weekday (during school vacation, or like today when I don't have any classes to attend), I'll go with him to shop for groceries. My Dad's 58, retired, so he does the shopping now. But being 58, he usually enlists my help when he needs to buy the heavier stuff, like rice. Today he's going to buy packet drinks for the New Year when people come visit.
Usually we'd walk over to a place called "258". It's actually not a place, per se, but a collection of small Mom & Pop stores and a "Shop & Save", which is a cross between a wet market and a supermarket. It's supposed to be a supermarket, but it doesn't look nor feel like one.
So as always, my Dad went off to S&S while I went to buy lunch. We never cook lunch on weekdays because it's just the 2, or if my sister is also home, 3 of us. My Mum's working, so she never has lunch at home on a weekday. I always walk up to S&S after buying lunch to meet my Dad and to help him carry everything home.
Today on our way there, I saw an area in the carpark behind 258 roped off with police tape. I thought that was weird...I mean, when you see police tape, it usually means something's happened. I did not see anything strange in the carpark, so I didn't think anymore of it.
After buying lunch, I took the usual route to S&S. I was surprised to see my Dad walking back and looking for me. He signaled for me to follow him. On my way to catch up with my Dad, I saw the owner of the aquarium shop sitting at the coffee shop, having a cigarette.
I finally caught up to my Dad. I thought he wanted to show me something, or he wanted to buy something and needed my help to carry it.
Instead, he told me I couldn't take my usual route because it's been blocked off by the police. There had been a fire. Okay...That explained the police tape in the carpark. But because everything seemed usual up till this point, and I was lead off in another direction before I actually saw the police on my usual route, I thought it's probably a small fire. After all, it was still business as usual at the coffee shop and everywhere else. I did see a group of distraught shopkeepers on my detour...But at this time all I could see was the back of the shops, and they looked fine to me.
When we reached the other end of the "street" (it's very hard to describe the layout), we had to turn to get to S&S, and that's when I saw the devastation.
From our vantage point, we saw that 2 whole rows of shops were charred. The 2 rows were facing each other, and stretches down for about 80-100 metres I think. Police officers, firefighters and people from the town council were there, inspecting the damage.
It was pretty insane. I grew up in this area, moving here when I was 5. I've been to 258 a million times. Now all the shops were charred. We lingered for a short while, looking at what remained of the shops behind the police tape.
We finished our shopping and 10 minutes after we got home, the news bulletin on the radio reported the fire. It happened in the dead of the night, early this morning. Which made sense because the fire could not have spread so far if there were people about.
Personally, after seeing the aftermath, I think it was arson. The fire spread very far horizontally, but did very little damage vertically. Those were 2-storey buildings, but the 2nd-level seems fine. But don't take my word for it, I saw what I saw from a distance.
This is a huge blow for many of the shopkeepers. They've probably overstocked for the Chinese New Year, and now the fire's taken everything.
What a miserable way to begin the new year.
^^^ by Locksley @ 1:06 PM.
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