Young Writers Society

CHAPTER 1

I was born on November 8, it was Saturday that day. Why am I suddenly starting with my birth date? Well maybe I just wanted you to remember on 8 of November is my birthday and maybe send me some gifts. Just joking, there’s no need for presents, I’ve kind of hated getting gift. Not that I’d decline gift. Moving on, of course I don’t remember what happened when I was born or how my mom and dad looked like went I was born; I bet they were thrilled, well at least I hope they were. My family and I lived in the countryside, it was nice and refreshing. It was a really nice place especially for a kid like me who likes to go and climb trees.

Let’s skip the odd years of not remembering anything and start when I first had my memories. Yes it might sound absurd, but that’s just how it is. My first memory was when I was four years old. How do I know I was four you ask? That’s because I heard my mom said ‘you’re four years old now’ then I don’t remember the rest of what she said. It was afternoon that day; I was waving to my brother and sister as they rode the school bus. Then the memory stops there and it goes to another scene. It was a holiday that day, so my brother and sister was there playing with me. I remember playing house with them and my cousins, it was really fun. On a nice day, I would usually walk with my brother and sister down a small rode that had a mangoosteen tree and a rambutan tree. On rainy days we would run outside towards the small tent at the garage that my father set up for us and stay there to enjoy the rain. If it rained heavily, the tent would get flooded and we would play in the water like we were inside a pool. When I was small, I would usually stay at my cousins’ house because his mom was taking care of us three siblings when mom and dad are out working. I had tons of fun playing with my cousins’ and sometimes when the weather’s good, I would drag my siblings out to ride a bicycle with me. My brother and sister would always be there with me wherever I played. They are like the over-protective type of siblings, but I always had a lot of fun with them.

If I’d have to describe our relationship as siblings then I’d say it’s good, though there are some occasional fights but what kind of siblings don’t fight? When I was six, we moved to the city. It was scary at first, but it soon became better. We moved around from one place to another there. Finally, my parents found a place to settle down. It was a teacher quarters that has a total of four block with its layout shaped as a diamond. This is where things started to get really messed up. I had a lot of friends there and most of them are older than I am with some being the same age as my sister, but sometimes I just wondered if they really are my friends. Why I said it like that? That’s because they won’t play with me if my sister isn’t around. Well seeing it in that way really makes it as if they are not really my friends, but just my sister’s. As a solution to my problem, I played with the guys and my best friend Mr. Invisible. I played soccer, catching fish and do lots of things with the boys. Whenever I had no one to play with, I usually went to the park to climb trees and play with Mr. Invisible. Mr. Invisible is really nice, and yes, he is my imaginary friend. It’s wrong to have imaginary friends? Well I don’t care, it’s better to play with Mr. Invisible than playing with people who has hostility towards me. I never told my parents or anyone about Mr. Invisible because I don’t want any weakness of mine to leak out. All of this might sound weird coming from a kid, but unfortunately, I’m not your ordinary kid who says anything that comes to mind. Instead, I’m a kid who rethinks my words three to four times before I said it. This habit of mine probably came from my experience of getting hurt by those seemingly ‘innocent’ kids.

But one day, my ‘friends’ came and dragged me away while I was playing soccer. They said ‘you’re a girl, you can’t play with boys’ and being a naïve kid I am, I stopped playing with the guys…only for a day that is. My motto since I was a kid till now was ‘play what you like, take what you deserve and earn what you can’ and with that in my head I played like any normal day. When I got home after playing with the guys, my mom was glaring at me furiously, I wondered why. I was scared, I mean she’s my mom; she’s the scariest woman in the world. Turns out she was mad at me for playing with the guys. I wish I could ask her what she wanted me to do. Does she want me to die playing with fakers and not live my childhood life like any normal kid out there? But of course I didn’t say anything, I just let it go. When I turned seven, I hated school, not that I particularly like school when I was younger. But it worsened as I grew up. At that time I didn’t know the reason why I hated school, but for the nineteen years old me now to not know is impossible. The reason was simple, of all the people I met, no one said something like, ‘you’re a smart kid, good job’ or something like that. They all would say to me, ‘you stupid kid, you can’t even do this simple thing’ or ‘if you were even half of your sister or brother that would be nice’. Hearing it so often makes me think, why do I need to go to school for, in the end, I’ll be nothing but a shadow of my brother and sister. It also caused me to start hating my brother and sister’s existence.

So with that though lingering on my mind for as long as I could remember, I continued hating school. Then the moment I realize adults are liars came. I was nine years old that year, I moved from the school near my house to a school where my mom works. Some problem happened here and there and I was admitted to grade five. Let me tell you this, for a grade three kid to learn a grade five lesson is as hard as climbing Mount Everest! I studied there for a few days before the teachers, or more precisely, my mom noticed that I was in the wrong grade. A few days later, I was assigned to a new class in grade three, they finally got it right! When I first entered school I thought that maybe I’d be able to make friends, but since I was in the wrong grade at first, I was too busy trying to figure out what in the world are the things the teachers are talking about. Then when I moved to a grade three class, I thought I’d make friends there as well, but the world just doesn’t seem to like me that much. Because I never liked school, I didn’t bother learning, so they thought putting me in the last class was ‘okay’ but it’s not. In that class, my nightmare began. I was a really quiet kid back then, now it’s still the same, but I’m gathering my courage to change. You probably have heard this sentence ‘if you’re bullied, tell a teacher, they will help’ but let me tell you this, it’s all a freaking lie. Teachers, parents, friends, classmates, peers, and outsiders they are all inhumane.

The first few days going to school were still okay, but I was isolated. Don’t bother asking if I tried talking to my parents, I did, but they were too busy with their work to bother with an unimportant, useless, no talent and a waste of life kid. But isolated was still okay, no, I’d prefer being isolated than being bullied. One day, a ‘friend’ of mine came to my desk and casually took my new pencil, of course I didn’t show it to her, she saw me using something she doesn’t have. I asked her to give me the pencil back, but she didn’t, so I tried to take it back and she broke it. Then seeing the pencil broke, she, just like how she took it, casually returns them to me with a smile. I was sad, really sad. I liked that pencil. I told my mom about it, but she just brushed me aside. Was I depressed? What a stupid question, of course I am. The people I trusted the most turns a blind eye to all this, what was I supposed to do? What she did was still bearable, what pains me the most was that I was bullied by the majority of the class. The boys in the class would pull my hair, my clothes, stole my stuff and call me the devil’s child. The girls would laugh from afar and pretend to be my friend, some stole my money, some stole my food, some stole my stuff and others just mock me. I wondered why. Every day I would put up a fake smile as soon as school was over as I head to my mom’s office. It was taxing keeping up that fake smile. Why didn’t I just show how sad and depressed I am to my mom? Because she won’t care. No one give a shit about a messed up, useless, better off dead kid.

There was actually a day where the guys would bully me, call me the devil’s child, stole my stuff right in front of the teachers. But as usual, the teachers don’t give a fuck about it. They just say that it’s all a child’s play. They told me it would get better, they would stop. But it didn’t. There was this one time when I was drinking water and the boys was running around, I don’t know who, but he pushed my water bottle while I was drinking. The impact caused my lips to have a huge cut and lots of blood came out. Of course the teacher was there, but he didn’t do anything like stopping the boys from running around. After I got my blood all over my clothes, I asked the teacher if I can go to my mom’s office. I stayed there until school was over and didn’t even bother to go back to class no matter how many times the teachers and my mom tells me so. I mean, who in their right mind would go back to such a terrible place? I know I wouldn’t.