It was a very early morning one Sunday and I was on board the train, and as expected, many rank and file workers were on the early commute to their respective work places. I sat down next to a lady rank and file worker, and she was fast asleep, in fact she slept so soundly that she let out a disgruntled grunt after the moving train jostled and jerked as it approached a train station.
As we approached Canberra MRT station, she let rip a long rattling fart which pounded the melamine moulded seats of the MRT train and the sound was amplified by up to at least 3 times. The magnitude of the fart was indeed a cry for help of trapped poop at the gates of near freedom. Had it been of a longer duration, usually the tail end of the fart would have allowed some jus to peek through the seams. Indeed, no fart is so dry that it would be drip around the rotund curvatures of the butt cheeks. Usually there is immense heat being produced at the same time, and that would result in the cold damp sweat of micro droplets around the circumference of the curvatures, nearer to the inner cavity.
She grunted again. This time round it was more guttural, like the disgruntled grumblings of a Mongolia herdsman at the local vodka store when met with the saddened news that the local stash had run out for the night. She tossed and turned driving her messy hair into the side plastic panel where she rested her forehead, as if she was trying to hide under the bed sheets, hiding away from the passing shimmers of morning light as the train zips quickly across Lower Seletar Reservoir, with the golden taels of ingots glistening against the mini waves as the sun shone brightly across the surface of the water.
And then the second fart sounded like a ram’s horn signalling the possible gust of forced rivers bursting through failed partitions holding back the onslaught of poop. Thankfully nothing happened, or else she would have woken up. And just as I thought she fell deeper into her slumber, she jolted out of her seat and exited at Toa Payoh station, hair in a state of major upheaval, like a silent revolt to her neatly groomed hair when her journey started.
Thankfully also, her farts didn’t have any smell. Perhaps the old adage is also true, the louder they are, the more harmless, and the silent ones are the violent ones.