I cleaned up a couple of drawers today. Perhaps I'm a sentimental guy. I like to keep stuff that are remnants of the past. Not that extreme, like keeping a mummy or sand from beaches of places I've been to, but more of events or people that entered my life.
Example: class photos. Or other such memorabilia. Some might say this is being too materialistic, and I tend to agree. If I could go back in time, I would travel back in time and create a 3d model of my primary school. How else to tell my kids about the joys of playing catching or zero point or hopscotch. Their version of playing catching would be pressing WASD on the keyboard. And maybe hold on to the shift button to sprint.
And among my 'artifacts' I found a notebook. One that I used during BMT and includes poems and prose that I wrote during free time.
One you can view here http://monkeytuba.blogspot.com/2008/10/step-forward.html>http://monkeytuba.blogspot.com/2008/10/step-forward.html
The other one, I shall post below. If my memory serves me right, I wrote it in an effort to combine stories with a friend of mine. But she probably might have forgotten about it already, though she did have a flair for writing exceedingly well.
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Take the dagger, stab me twice
But, be warned, I'm as hard as ice.
Royal blood that flows down south,
Down the ancient mountain's mouth.
By the rising of the sun,
Power and your will be done.
'Sixty-four days', He uttered to himself as he etched another mark on the cave with his self-crafted dagger.
He had woken to find himself chained to the bars, caged up like an animal, along with other children. He had pleaded with his captors to release him, but they only looked at him unfeelingly. He spoke in all the languages that he knew, including dialects from neighboring tribes, but to no avail.
It soon became a routine. They would travel to a new town every week, to be displayed like fruits at a fruit store. At every sale, he hoped eagerly to be bought and freed, but at the end of the day, nobody wanted him.
Perhaps it was because he was thin and bony, and in the eye of his prospective buyers, he would be useless and a burden to the household.
But what could he do? Bread as hard as rock was given out thrice a day. Some times he dreamt of taking the bread and throwing it back to them and knock them out.
Them that feasted every night. The children would look out from the cage, with lifeless eyes. The new 'additions' would lean towards, hoping for some merciful captor to throw them some scraps. Any scrap.
He would know. He did that for the first week till he realized it was just a sport to them; to taunt the children and feign pity.
The only thing he looked forward to was the bath. He noticed the trend on his thirtieth day. Every time they were about to reach an urban town, the children would be chucked into a river for a bath. They would be stripped out of their rages and given new clothes. He always hoped with bated breath at every town, hoping to be bought. Every town that he left, he held on, thinking 'the next town, perhaps'.
It never came. Something life-changing happened instead.
A new kid. Fear and sorrow overflowing, but a glint of hope still remained.
She spoke his dialect too.
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