Below is exactly what i wrote a few weeks before the exams, while completing my FT resume and chancing upon my old secondary essays.
Today I did something I haven't done in 4 years. I looked through my past narratives in Sec 4 and was impressed. How did I ever conjure up such products, such ingenuity of plots and descriptions that the older, more mature me can never attain to that level ever again? What has become of my writing, of my use of descriptors, of my ability to create colourful phrases and imaginative metaphors, analogies and though provoking story lines? Judging by this paragraph alone is sufficient to spot the dull, repetitive style of writing that I have gradually adopted. Perhaps this is reflective of what life has become. Mundane, routinal, for lack of a better word, boring. And to look at the development, or rather, erosion of my writing pains me, disappoints me; to know that the colour and creativity of my life has significantly escaped from where it used to thrive at the tip of my finers, ready to transfer itself onto paper, into words, into stories; to feel that I have deteriorated, as a writer, as a person...
A few years from now, without a doubt, I'll be looking back at the above passage and perhaps wondering the same thing. My writing style would have probably mutated even further; I probably wouldn't even be writing anymore. Alas, that is the side effect of technology. Perhaps now should be the time, in light of my self awareness, to pick up the humble writing tool once again and attempt to invent a plot, to make up people and dream of fictitious events.
And this is what I am going to do.
***
Title: Panic.
Run, I told myself, run. It was a gut feeling, an intuition, and as the saying goes, sometimes you just have to follow your instincts. On that particular night that would forever change my life, I chose not to listen to my inherent fighting instinct.
It was late; the night was deathly quiet but for the sound of the cold, eerie breeze. Eerie, because the street was completely void of a single human soul except me. I walked through, momentarily enfulfed in darkness where a couple of faulty streetlamps covered, shielded the horrors that might lurk. My heels clicked-clacked on the concrete, this rhythm of night allowing me to immerse myself in my thoughts without any distraction.
As I walked further I neared the streetlamp that was working ahead. It flickered once. A few more steps and I was approaching it within seconds. It flickered again, and with a pathetic buzz the fuse fizzled and the light went out. The last streetlamp at the end of the pavement. Click, clack, click, clack, as I rounded the corner and into the alley leading to my street.
Click, clack, click clack, step, step, step - I stopped. Stiffness crept through my spine; my senses heightened immediately. Suddenly the darkness was overwhelming; it was like a storm cloud looming right above me. Tingles ran through my back, up the spine and crawled around my neck. I felt suffocated, shortness of breath developing as my heart pumped more and more furiously. Step, step. Slower now. Slower and surer. It was waiting for me to make my move. Waiting, anticipating without so much as a flicker of doubt in its footsteps. Yes, it knew it had me now. Step, step. It was inching towards me, intimidating me bit by bit, torturing my nerves, pushing me closer and closer to the edge of the cliff. To see when I would panic.
Run, I told myself, run. But my feet did not respond; it couldn't. It was as if my heels had been caught in a crevice in the pavement, as if my feet were stuck so deep if I were to try I would pull it right off its sockets. No, another part of me decided, put up a brave front. And as though I was a robot being operated by miniscule creatures in my brain, the top half of my body responded and turned to face "it", while the rest of my legs continued to stay rooted six feet deep.
I saw a flash of silver and that triggered my panic-driven instincts, but by then it was too late. Pain spread through my nerves, my joints, and clouded my vision as I sank, a messy heap of blood and flailing arms coupled with screams of agony and then, blackness.
I woke up from a coma two weeks later a victim of rape and assault, but more than that, I was a victim of my own moment of courage, my fight instincts, my failure to panic.
Run, I told myself, run. It was a gut feeling, an intuition, and as the saying goes, sometimes you just have to follow your instincts. On that particular night that would forever change my life, I chose not to listen to my inherent fighting instinct.
It was late; the night was deathly quiet but for the sound of the cold, eerie breeze. Eerie, because the street was completely void of a single human soul except me. I walked through, momentarily enfulfed in darkness where a couple of faulty streetlamps covered, shielded the horrors that might lurk. My heels clicked-clacked on the concrete, this rhythm of night allowing me to immerse myself in my thoughts without any distraction.
As I walked further I neared the streetlamp that was working ahead. It flickered once. A few more steps and I was approaching it within seconds. It flickered again, and with a pathetic buzz the fuse fizzled and the light went out. The last streetlamp at the end of the pavement. Click, clack, click, clack, as I rounded the corner and into the alley leading to my street.
Click, clack, click clack, step, step, step - I stopped. Stiffness crept through my spine; my senses heightened immediately. Suddenly the darkness was overwhelming; it was like a storm cloud looming right above me. Tingles ran through my back, up the spine and crawled around my neck. I felt suffocated, shortness of breath developing as my heart pumped more and more furiously. Step, step. Slower now. Slower and surer. It was waiting for me to make my move. Waiting, anticipating without so much as a flicker of doubt in its footsteps. Yes, it knew it had me now. Step, step. It was inching towards me, intimidating me bit by bit, torturing my nerves, pushing me closer and closer to the edge of the cliff. To see when I would panic.
Run, I told myself, run. But my feet did not respond; it couldn't. It was as if my heels had been caught in a crevice in the pavement, as if my feet were stuck so deep if I were to try I would pull it right off its sockets. No, another part of me decided, put up a brave front. And as though I was a robot being operated by miniscule creatures in my brain, the top half of my body responded and turned to face "it", while the rest of my legs continued to stay rooted six feet deep.
I saw a flash of silver and that triggered my panic-driven instincts, but by then it was too late. Pain spread through my nerves, my joints, and clouded my vision as I sank, a messy heap of blood and flailing arms coupled with screams of agony and then, blackness.
I woke up from a coma two weeks later a victim of rape and assault, but more than that, I was a victim of my own moment of courage, my fight instincts, my failure to panic.
***
It felt too short for me actually, this essay. Too short and doesn't really follow the theme. In fact, I pathetically tried to fit the original theme at the end, which ended really cheesy. Until now I still don't know who the attacker is. Too lazy to describe when I was writing.
Shortcut101: Cut to the chase so you can avoid painful, tedious descriptions of attack scenes!
Shortcut101: Cut to the chase so you can avoid painful, tedious descriptions of attack scenes!
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