Chapter 0

My life is full of clichès.

Living in a single parent household, it's inevitable to ask the questions of, "What was mom like? Do we have pictures."

Eventually you'd get more hesitant to ask because of the reluctance in people's response.

Rather, you start to notice their words being scripted.

It's straight out of a novel. No mother, a father who's hardly around and a grandmother who, was soon hitting her retirement age, loved me oh so much and didn't miss the chance to spoil her grandson.

I ,however, was an asshole. A bratty child who cried when nothing went his way.

Maybe it was me just being an attention seeker, I'll leave that for the psychiatrists to deduce, but I feel guilty for not seeing how much my grandmother goes through every single day much sooner.

If this were a novel or a Manga, I would've wished to be endearing like Anya, Gon or even Eleven. Somehow good things always gravitated towards the protagonist.

But I'm not a protagonist.

Just a dude with issues.

The first red flag was that I didn't have many friends growing up. Never really did fit in.

I remember when my friend's dad offered to take All my friend's and I to an amusement park close to the CBD.

There was an obvious issue with the seating arrangement because a Land Rover can only carry so many kids. But with one in the front and four in the back, plus the extra two seats in the boot area we should've been fine!

My friend's Dad then suggested, "hey, why don't you go home and get some good shoes and a sweater because we'll be out the whole day?"

I didn't see it at the time, I was too excited as I ran home and changed all my clothes and even wore my favorite Buggs Bunny hat.

On returning.

They weren't there.

I assumed, "oh maybe they went to go get some snacks and they'll be back." As any good road trip, like in the movies. Yeah! Just like the movies.

So I waited.

And Waited.

And Waited.

The setting sun burning my eyes drained the last of my willpower and I sullenly walked home.

It became even worse when my grandmother and I moved.

First, to a quiet three bedroom home with a vast open compound a mere ten minute walk from the main road. My uncle occupied the third room and the unfamiliar feeling weighing my heart was much easier to handle.

The second time, to her maternal home in the countryside where all the ghosts of her time in Tokyo with my grandfather stay. Together with that classic cream coloured Mercedes Benz that I fell in love with.

The concept of death was introduced to me at a pretty early age. So living in the countryside was literal torture for a young 6 year old boy with an overactive imagination. No electricity, No friends, No distractions.

Just me and my thoughts.

I can clearly remember how slow the days dragged as I found myself with nothing to do in a beautiful garden with nothing but the hot and humid air to keep me company.

At least in the confines of modernity I had a TV with three channels to distract me.

That changed for the better when my dad Airdropped a PlayStation 2 with the games Fifa 07', Jak3, Killzone, Getaway and Sly Cooper. Age restriction? Well.... I didn't play Killzone much because I got scared of the enemy forces Nazi marching in a cutscenes, I didn't play the getaway because it had no hand holding so I didn't get out of the tutorial and Fifa was just boring.

That is why, I will swear to you, that my night terrors and panic attacks were not caused by video games.

It must've been something else, like the three times our home was invaded, and I watched as my uncle leaned against the sink , blood dripping into the now bloodied water. Or that Sunday afternoon when I had to untie my grandmother after the masked men who generously let me watch cartoons left. Or when my PS2 was gone together with the CRT TV.

I'm not scared of anything, my fight would kick in immediately before flight.

Anyway, It took me a few years to get used to sleeping with my lights off. Night light? Waste of money.

My Dad came back from working on Dubai. Call it Naivete or just Hope. But Things did get better sure, but happiness was fleeting. Sure my Dad came back, but my Gran moved to the countryside after retiring.

It's like I'm punished for being happy. So our family was never fully complete.

I envied my cousins so much for that, maybe one day I'll muster the courage to tell them.

We were hit with financial problems, no biggie, it happens to everyone. Our electricity was axed, we lived off on rainwater but I made friends.

Three brothers around my age who went to the same school as myself. Better yet? They had a PlayStation 2!

Finding Nemo

Ea Street Football

And icing on the cake? They had Yu-Gi-Oh cards!

I always lost but for the first time in years, I wasn't bored.

With my family's current state I was quite embarrassed with how we were living comparatively to my friends but I always did my best to host them.

Until. One day, we wanted to play football, we've done it plenty of times before, and the perfect place to do so was of course my humble abode.

Imagine, my shock, our collective confusion when my uncle blatantly said ,No, and refused to elaborate further.

It was unfair, unjust and quite frankly? Not cool.

But it's whatever. We just played on the cobbled path not fearing a few bruises.

But the very next day? I go to see my friends, ear to ear grin. I knock on their door, their grandmother opened the door.

As politely as I could muster, I asked if they could come out and play. I was met with a No.

Taken aback, I tried a different approach, I asked if i could come in and play.

I was met with a stare I was all too familiar with. As if my presence was a pestilence in itself. Granted I always had the feeling that she never liked me, but I ignored it because the boy's mom was always kind to me. Looking back now, maybe it was out of pity.

Nevertheless, she held the door slightly less ajar. I don't remember exactly what she said, but I remember feeling how unfair it was. I remember thinking, It wasn't my fault It was my uncle's! He's the one who didn't let us play in the compound that day.

Not a single one of the brother's came to my defense that day as I walked away sobbing.

My deepest regret was telling the old lady to shut up as I ran away when she called after me.

They moved shortly after. I didn't even notice when they moved.

The financial situation got worse, as I walked home on a chilly morning fighting back tears. I broke the news to my dad, the bus just left me, I didn't understand, I was broken.

Sure I never liked waking up early, but I really liked that school. I just didn't understand how they would forget me.

The next day I was in school, but a week later? I was told by one of the teachers not to board the bus home, that my dad would come pick me up. I dutifully waited in the pavilion with my friends.

It wasn't so bad, we spent a few hours pretending to collect "snake eggs" as the director looked in horror at the mere thought of kids collecting snake eggs.

Granted we have never seen how snake eggs look like. So we assumed these small pink things no bigger than a grain of rice were that!

Minutes turned into hours, as the sun sank into the horizon and all my friends went home, the teacher on duty told me to hang in there and soon went home themselves.

I remember how cold it was. When it rained. How dark it was when I was sheltered underneath the pavilion from the elements. How I desperately clung onto the Hope that my dad will soon be here with an umbrella and take me home. When I tucked my knees and arms into my sweater, stretching the woolen fabric.

I didn't cry Once.

I desperately clung onto the Hope that all this won't be for nothing.

Shivering madly.

I further curled myself into a ball.

Wishing I could go home.

There was no thunder, no lightning. Just the violent drumming of the rain on the iron sheet canopy that protected me from the overhead assault.

But did nothing for the raindrops that danced around me.

I thought back to when the teacher on duty looked on with pity before leaving. The director who was indifferent.

Who should I blame?

The rain stopped.

Almost immediately I was overcome with this sense of calm.

I could see my breath but I wasn't cold. I stepped into the wet cobbled path, throwing away All the snake eggs I collected. I wish I took a moment to explore the empty school but all I could do was look up as a familiar voice called out to me,

"The moon is so beautiful tonight."