Gemma East, Building 6-Section A of the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts was in a complete state of disarray. Thirty minutes have passed without a teacher and its hormonally charged inhabitants have managed to bring forth impeccable havoc around the place.
Our first subject teacher was not around for that period but she sent her student assistant to inform us that she can't come in due to a fever.
We were released early and somehow in this first day of school madness, I found my way out and started walking towards the school library-the only thing that was remarkable in this shit pile-of-a-place.
Miss Andressa, the school librarian commonly known as Miss. Piggy due to her disproportionately large nose and plumped body took her 8:45 am siesta. She dozed-off at the counter and I was quite amazed at how she managed to sleep by slouching on a plastic chair that was in imminent danger of falling apart. She sounded snorting rather than snoring.
After I wrote my name and the date on the library logbook I skedaddled towards the "Classic Section". I ran my fingers through the neatly-arranged books on the shelf and surveyed each classic novel with an ardent appetite. There were books from Hawthorne, Dickens, Austen, Tolstoy and Harper Lee. But I was disappointed because I have read all of it.
I moved to the Contemporary Section, a less-explored territory. I picked Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, Mahfouz' Midaq Alley and Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist.
"Not bad..." I said to myself. I sat on the edge of the reading table where I cannot hear Miss. Andresa's snorts which have now gained momentum and sounded like a revving car engine that's stuck in the mud.
I played Nirvana's Come As You Are on my walkman, wore my headphones and started reading Angela's Ashes.
The book was a memoir of the author's childhood life in Limerick, Ireland. It was painfully written and funny at the same time.
One of the things that reeled me in was the number of deaths in the author's neighborhood during his childhood that was associated with extreme poverty and cold-weather.
Death, after death, after death--the book was darker than a DC movie.
I felt sad to know that somewhere in the world, some people were good at dying too. Just kidding. It felt good. An 'Oh god I'm not alone...' kinda good.
I tried to fight my tears from falling when the author's younger sister died as an infant cradled in his mother's arms due to malnutrition.
I've read a UN journal once which reported that Malnutrition is one of the leading causes of death in Third World Countries. I bet my life to it that Nana has read it too.
I thought for a second if the author's family was cursed as well. I looked around me and felt glad that there's not a single soul nearby. It was safe to let a few tears escape.
I have this thing about a good cry since I was a kid. A good cry is like good sex. Not that I tried. Well, I did try the self-service option once or twice but I don't think that counts as sex.
"What's wrong? Why are you crying?" A voice half-baked to adolescence squealed in the background. I traced the sound and saw Mr. Sunshine himself looking awfully concerned like a stupid puppy.