Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Reflection ❯ Reflection ( Chapter 1 )

They say that autumn was the season where days rapidly get shorter and cooler, the nights rapidly get longer and of gradually increasing precipitation in some parts of the world, but as Singapore is not one of those parts of the world, when autumn comes, I would wonder what it would be like to be in places like the United States, Canada and South America which are famous around the world for the brilliance of their "fall foliage."

 

For me, autumn meant the beginning of the school holidays (at least for the students in secondary schools), but at the same time, it also meant falling sick because of the sudden drop in temperature which is a result of the rains which came with the monsoon season. For my younger brother, it probably meant lots of time to play computer games but I had no intention of ever asking. After all, why ask when he is not even listening? Better to spend the time reading some book I had just borrowed or watch some movies which I got my mother to rent for me and immerse myself in the worlds which the imagination of other people have created.

 

Now in October, just a week before my end of year examinations are just about to begin, I had to devote all my time to studying in order to make up for the time I had spent procrastinating the dreaded moment when I have to pick up start revising for the past two months. For some reason, although I knew I shouldn't procrastinate doing things so much, I couldn't help doing so anyway. It was always `Oh, I can always do this tomorrow' or `I want to finish reading this book first'. The list of excuses never seems to end.

 

As if having to study almost the whole day until my exams are over wasn't bad enough, I fell ill a few days before the exams. Because it isn't very serious (at least according to my mother), I continued going to school and had to endure the indignity of having to blow my nose what felt like every few minutes in class but when I started coughing badly and started having difficulties breathing, I started having an obsession with death. It wasn't the first time I had an obsession with death, but when I started having an obsession with death, each day was filled with thoughts of whether I would live to see the next day and whether anyone will miss me if I die. Thinking about such things dug up half forgotten memories and most of them are unpleasant. One of the most unpleasant was of a day when I made several mistakes during a game which the teacher made the whole class play and when I heard the jeering laughter of my classmates punctured occasionally by a scathing remark, I realized that none of them will care even if I dropped dead in front of them.

 

That day, when that lesson was finally over, I took my literature file and textbook out of my bag and went off for literature. I can't remember what the teacher was teaching that day, but I could remember a particularly crude joke one of my classmates made that day. When my teacher said that the notes which she gives out should be taken care of because she doesn't reproduce them, that classmate suggested that she get a man to help her reproduce the notes as a joke. It was a while before she understood what the joke was about, but when she did, she laughed and said that she doesn't reproduce notes that way.

 

Sometimes when I looked back at that incident, I wondered why she didn't lose her temper but when I started thinking about death again, any thoughts about previous incidents sank back into the abyss of my mind. As time went by, I started thinking about how it would feel to simply die whenever I was in an unpleasant situation to cheer myself up by telling myself that the situation wasn't as bad as dying. It wasn't a particularly cheerful thought, but it worked.

 

Then, I had a dream which changed everything. In that dream, I was crossing a road when I saw a truck approaching. I tried to run out of the way, but I couldn't. I stood frozen, unable to move as I watched the headlights of the truck grow bigger and bigger. I shut my eyes, praying that it would stop while the light of the headlights shining through my eyelids became brighter and brighter. Then, before I could register what had happened, I found myself thrown into the air. I felt a strange feeling of weightlessness and as I floated upwards, I watched as though from far away as the tiny shapes of people emerged from the truck to examine the motionless figure in front of the truck.

As I continued drifting upwards, I faded into a state of unconsciousness and when I woke up, I found myself in my room. Everything was where I had left it, with my textbook in untidy piles on the floor and all over my desk.

Something fell from one of the shelves where I keep my books and when I picked it up, I realized that it was one of the many books I had been meaning to read for a long time but never found the time to do so.

 

It was at that moment when I realized that one of the most frightening things about death was that when I die, I would not be able to do the things I had always wanted to do. All my hopes and dreams would vanish as though they had never existed. And at that moment, I also realized a truth about myself. Although I found the thought of dying was very appealing sometimes, when actually confronted with death, I clung to life, which meant that whether I liked it or not, some part of me which refused to die and would continue to fight to the end if there was a need to. Then, memories of being knocked down by the truck flooded my mind.

Suddenly, my room started shaking and large cracks appeared on the floor of my room. Before my eyes, everything started breaking into large pieces before disintegrating into smaller pieces in the darkness which replaced every piece of my room which was gone. As I watched, the floor under my feet fell apart and I fell into the darkness. The pages of the book which I was holding in my hands began flapping as if a very strong wind was blowing and suddenly, a shape emerged from its pages. It was a little wobbly at first, but when it solidified, I saw that it was a pirate. He was dressed in a tattered white shirt, a pair of baggy pants and a coat.

 

You might have thought that I would be terrified in such a situation, but I wasn't even when he brandished a sword and pointed it at me as he shouted, `What do you think you're staring at!' For a moment, I stared at him, wondering what I should say in such a situation when he suddenly disappeared. I blinked, trying to figure where he had gone when I felt something trying to wrap itself around me. Without thinking, I started struggling as hard as I could, kicking and scratching wildly at that something.

`Wake up!'

When I opened my eyes, I saw the blurry shape of my mother looking at me. Instinctively, I got up and groped for my glasses. After putting them on, I saw that she looked annoyed.

`What's the matter?'

Instead of replying, she pointed at her arm, which had several scratches on it.

`Sorry.' I said sheepishly. `What's the time?'

`Time to get up. You'll be late for school if you don't hurry up.'

For the rest of the day, I couldn't help thinking about that dream. When one of my classmates came to me and said that someone likes me, I said that I knew she was lying with out thinking. After all, she had an irritating habit of pulling off ludicrous or grotesque acts as amusement for herself and her friends.

`No, I'm not.' She always denied that she was lying, but she never stopped doing it anyway.

`You are.'

`I'm not.'

`You are.'

`I'm not.'

 

By now, I was getting tired of this exchange.

`Well, assuming that you are not, who is it this time?'

`Err…,' she glanced around the classroom for a moment and pointed at some random guy at the back. `Him.'

Without bothering to turn around, I reached into my bag, pulled out a book and pretended to read, hoping that she would go away. I had found out long ago that ignoring the people speaking to me is the best way to make them go away because they always have better things to do than talk with someone who is not even listening in the first place.

Undaunted, she went on. `There's a ghost behind you.'

I ignored her and after several attempts to get my attention, she went off to chat with her friends.

When the final bell finally rung, I slipped away like a ghost and went home, clutching a sweet in my hand. Maybe I should give it to my youngest brother, who loves sweets. It was something I wanted to eat, but giving it to him might be better. After all, I had not been very nice to him for some time. As I kicked absentmindedly at the leaves which littered the pavement, I reflected about one of the many rather twisted theories about people which I had come up with during the many times I was depressed. According to that theory, people have many faces, but the most important are the face people show to people they consider as enemies and the face which people show to people they consider as friends because the difference between these two faces are what makes people scary in a way. To me, the bigger the difference, the more frightening a person is. At that time when I came up with this, I thought that I was nice to everyone, but when I looked closer at how I treat my younger brother, whom I loathed because of his disgusting habits, I realized that I am one of those people who often hurt people unintentionally. Since then, I had tried to be nice to him, but when I am in a bad mood, I always ended up venting it on him. I know that I should not bully him whenever I am in a bad mood, but I often did so anyway. In the end, another of my theories that it was human instinct to be mean was right.