Fickle Imaginations

I walk out of the familiar parking lot of my younger brother's primary school holding my brother's hand. I look around the school's compound, taking in the structures I had known since I was a child. While I walk on towards the bookshop building, somehow, my head turn to the classroom block, which stands alone at the far end of the school's compound. As I look at the building, I see the Grade 2b classroom, the second classroom from the middle stairway and I was suddenly transported 15 years back, when I was still was a pupil of the school.  《《《《《《《《《《《《《《《《  It was the summer of my Grade 2. I had turn 8 just a few weeks before and I was going to Grade 3. Summer classes were on-going but I never went for any as I was already a smart pupil. My mum and I had come to school to get my new books for Grade 3.  "Go upstairs," my mum had said, "Go say 'hi' to your friends." I excitedly turned around and walked quickly to the classroom block.  As I rea...

"Yes," she said solemnly, "They're still people that eat other people just for the sake of it." I drop my spoon and look at my aunt Clara closely.  "I don't even believe that," I say, picking up my spoon. "There were these girls in my high school." she start, her eyes cloud like she could see what she's about to say.  "One was Kiara and the other, Annie. These girls were best friends for as long as I knew. They were practically sisters. Rumours had it that Kiara was from a wealthy family while Annie's parents were struggling to survive."  "But that was before Annie met Kiara. Annie was to be kicked out of high school that year because her parents couldn't afford the fees and it was a government school. So Kiara made her parents pay her school fees. From then on, Kiara's parents took Annie as theirs as Annie's parents lived very very far away in the isolated village they came from. Kiara's parents usu...

"Things will get better," she whispered in a soft but firm voice, "We'll be fine, you'll see. It'll all get better before you know it." The look in her eyes suggested that she was sure of it, not minding what I thought I could see. And I believed her. I had to - it was my last thread of hope.  We'd passed through thunder, storms, blisters, quakes and all. "Together," she'll say, "Together we'll sail. Just don't you leave me." There'd been the happy and glorious times, where I had nothing to worry about. In those days I rarely heard her voice. I'd only feel her content smile and the blissful calmness of her empowering presence. There'd also been the tough and painful times -of misunderstandings, worry, incessant turmoils; times I was sure I'd drown. But all I needed was her presence. Each time she was there, we had made it, through everything - together. I'd come to reverence her words, though few, w...

She walks across the street in a hurry, looking over her back with each passing second, as though she could clearly see through the fog. She is dressed in black baggy joggers and an oversized dark gray hoodie that did well to hide to her dark complexion and glow in her skin - the tell-tale sign of a well maintained skin. She presses her hands tightly inside the big pockets of the hoodie as the foggy night chill brushes softly past her, ruffling the bit of brown bangs her big hoodie failed to cover. The largeness of her outfit in comparison to her small frame made it seem like she didn't want to be so conspicuous. She camouflages well with the midnight sky but her familiar emerald green eyes swiftly give her away. Her eyes skims her surroundings once more as she brings out her gloved hands to hug her hoodie closer to her body and quickly shoves them back in her hoddie pockets. She lazily searches for me in the alley way she asked us to meet at with her eyes, while she continues walk...