“I liked the rush, I liked the crunch. Never did look back at the fallout. Perhaps that was my first and probably biggest mistake. It’s a character trait that has plagued me throughout my life. Happy go lucky, no caring about the consequences of my actions, just settle for the buzz, the adrenalin high. This is beginning to sound like the words of that song, you probably know it, be it upon your own head if you don’t. It goes something like, “Lend me ten pounds and I’ll buy you a drink, and the devil take the hindmost in the morning,” sums me up spot on.
Now to get back to the point, just one backward glance and I would have noticed there was something incredibly wrong with the scene I had left behind. Instead of a mass of red and yellow flame with a sky-obscuring plume of oily smoke there was just a white glow and the crater which should have opened was rapidly filling in again. The whole expanse of earth, tarmac and brush started to flow like a river and no matter how hard I pressed my foot to the throttle, the car was still slowly moving backwards with me in it. This was more than unexpected, it was impossible, surreal and I did not want to be part of it. I surmised that the only way out was to get out and be very quick about it. With one hand I managed to release my seat-belt then I wrenched open my door and rolled out onto my side, leaving the car going away from me. By the time I finished rolling and got unsteadily to my feet I realised the error of my ways. It was like standing on a moving walkway and the sand-covered verge was slowly but surely pulling me back to the bomb-site. I didn’t have much time to figure out my next move. Wishing that I was Superman or any other of my childhood heroes I started to wonder what they would do. Then it hit me.”
Sam looked at the trees lining the highway. Varieties that he and his fellow prisoners had uprooted many years before. He knew tears would flow with every mile they covered, with each new memory. Memories of a life passed and lives lost amidst tears, both wasted and wasteful. Tears mixed with sweat-diluted blood. In the blazing, tropical, midday sun, moisture was precious, the guards watching every move, seldom and reluctantly offering water to drink. They had laid the track yard by yard but now he was perversely pleased to see their death railway transformed into the main highway through Burma
