CURFEW RUSH HOUR: THE DRIVE TIME STRESS TEST!
The traffic was busier than ever before, nose to tail as drivers coveted every inch of road, to ensure they would get home before the 7pm deadline. 18:30… 18:31… 18:32 One driver craned forward, looking left at the intersection, frantically seeking the indication from an approaching motorist that would allow them to enter the stream of traffic going ‘their way,’ while at the same time aware of the minutes ticking over far too quickly on the car’s digital dashboard clock.
18:37… became 18:38… became 18:40… and his blood pressure rose a tick higher.
“I knew it!” thought the motorist to himself, “We should have gone to the supermarket earlier.” But he sat, stoical on the outside, seething on the inside, tapping the steering wheel impatiently as he considered the amount of time his wife had taken to choose the fruit and vegetables. “When I do the shopping,” he mumbled to himself, “I do it in five minutes, bang, bang, bang… just like that!” 18:42… 18:43… “Oh wait! Is that guy turning? He’s slowing down I think but not indicating (Really?). Maybe I can squeeze in? Yes? No? Maybe? Yes, he’s turning! Maybe?...” But the car behind the turning car, also eager to get home, accelerated around the car in front of him, and the chance was gone. “Aaaaaaaargh…” 18:44… 18:45… The man settled again into his now familiar crouch over the steering wheel, stretched his neck muscles this way and that, and craned his neck forward again, searching left for that elusive gap in the traffic. “Maybe they will fine us a hundred Rials if we don’t get home in time?” Muttered his wife unhappily beside him, and it took all his control to respond with a blandly uttered, “Maybe,” with that look to the heavens that we men have become so practiced at. 18:47… 18:48… All he wanted to think about was the stream of traffic to his left. The gap came, and quick as a flash he ‘laid rubber,’ as he accelerated away… “Yes!” He congratulated himself, “we will make it!” And now, infinitely more relaxed, he drove homewards… it was 18:49 pm.
By 19:01 pm, nothing moved outside his house, even the usually ubiquitous rattling of the dry leaves on the trees was silent. The Omani flag, flying perpetually over the schoolyard, hung limp. There was no wind at all, no cooling breeze, so the temperature remained high, maybe 34 degrees, and it was stifling. It was the first night of the national curfew