Story Time: Part 3

Feb 14th 2005. It was a rainy afternoon. Mike and Tim met up to have lunch as they always do every other day. There are times when Mike does not see Tim that often, but when they do, they talk like long lost friends. Although Tim did not make it to university, he eventually signed on to the Air Force hoping to be a pilot one day. His dream was to fly around the world. After lunch, they were heading to their favourite cinema for a movie. As it was a rainy day and they did not have any umbrella, they waited at a shelter for the green man at a cross junction. When it came, they dashed across the road. To the horror of many people around the junction, a car did not managed to stop in time and was heading straight at Mike as he was dashing across the road. A hand pushed Mike away in the nick of time. The last thing Mike heard was a loud boom before he lost consciousness.

When Mike woke up, he was surrounded by his mum and dad as well as a few of his relatives. He felt his leg bandaged up but it feel alright. His parents told him that his was only slightly injured on his left leg as he was pushed away from the car just in time. Mike was worried. He asked, ‘Where is Tim? Is he okay, did he save me?’ He was getting real worried. His parents and relatives whispered among themselves. After a few minutes, his dad told him firmly, ‘Tim saved you and he got hit by the car instead and was killed instantly.’ Mike was devastated by the news of the death of his best friend. He started to weep uncontrollably. He knew he was the cause of Tim’s death though his parents keep reminding him that it was just an accident and no one wanted that to happen either.

One fine day, Laura opened her drawer and took out a cute little jewellery box. She opened it and smiled to herself. ‘What should she use today?’ she though to herself. She peeked into the box. Inside were pieces of razor, sharp pencil leads, needles and a bottle of antiseptic lotion. She looked at her arm and saw some scars on it. She decided to let them heal a bit more before playing with the items again. Her parents were out working as usual, but not before handing her a hectic schedule of the day. Normally, Laura would dread seeing that schedule. However, recently, she accepted the schedule with a smile on her face and even bid farewell to her parents, wishing them to have a nice day at work. She had been behaving like this ever since she found a new hobby.

Suddenly, she thought of a new idea. She went to the fridge, filled up a big bowl with ice, and immersed her hands into it. She felt good, real good. First the coldness, then the numbness, and finally to a certain extend, frostbite. You know when ice stick to your hand, its painful to remove. To Laura, the feeling was pure joy. After a good 20 minutes of that, she slowly removed the ice that was stuck to her hand. A bit of flesh was torn off, but Laura couldn’t care less. She washed up, applied some antiseptic lotion and continued with her hectic schedule for the day. Her parents did not know of her new found hobbies and the hobbies was what kept Laura sane from that demanding schedule. She managed to enroll in the university after coming out in the top 10% of the college cohort as expected by many. She got into the same course as Mike. The only difference is that Mike was already a 2nd year student and Laura was a still a freshie. They first met on orientation day.