The Fighters.

It's feels great to finally be able to catch my breath, finally be able to let go of my worries momentarily. A sweet sense of relief showered over me as I bursted through the wooden gates of my home. A whole afternoon, just to myself, no training, no aerobics exercises, no long care rides, no walking around in Penang, no hectic birthday celebrations, no tight football schedules, no waiting for buses, no more! If I had the time, I'd kiss the ground beneath my feet, but away I go! Grabbing my laptop upstairs to bask in my air-conditioned room, I'll be spoiling my brain silly with entertainment.

Nothing short of Sanctuary.

There's been something a worm at the back of my mind that I've been wanting to blog about, and I shall release his wiggles now. Last Sunday, my parents decided to head down to Sungai Petani, Kedah, to visit a very ambitious sister of mine at her oral hygiene convention. Her informative and dancing skills proved to add more oil to the subliminal sibling rivalry that I've cultivated. I had a loooooooooooooot of work to do if I wanted to match up with that prodigious sister of mine.


We spent that very night in Penang, where She proved to us that there was traffic worse than the worst parts of KL. As the car inched slowly in the bustling traffic, I caught glimpse of a few buildings. Old and tattered, they stood in the darkness, not even a splash of lighting to illuminate them in fine detail. It's no wonder my local friend ,Felicia, developed a fear for these looming structures. With paint peeling of walls of the buildings, they seemed to form malicious images, tinkering with the deep pits of my imagination.

One of our stops on this trip was on one of the stretches of beaches in Batu Ferringhi. Now, I'm no beach expert, but the soles of my feet have tasted their fair share of salt water and sand. This beach seemed satisfactory. No garbage along the coast. Children playing in the water. Sand castles stood erect all over. Stalls that sold ice cream and coconut drinks were conveniently parked nearby. Yes, all beaches were similar in some way, and this one didn't seem any different.

Not until I took a closer look, that is. There it was, tucked away between the a huge boulder and countless other rocks. It's detail so immaculate and unnoticable that no beach-frolicking child would notice in his rain of terror along the coast. The small rocks sitting next to a huge boulder seemed to have created somewhat of a puddle, where 3/4's of the walls are blocked. Inside that puddle was a school of tiny, black fish. So tiny in fact, that one of them were barely the size of half my pinky finger. At first, they didn't peak my interest much, they seemed like nothing more than 20 black tadpoles minding their own business.

At that very thought, a small tide came splashing down on the rocks. I gasped as the tide seemed to engulf my tiny, new-found friends, bashing them against the rocks and spiralling them into oblivion that is fishy hell. To my curiosity, they regrouped after what felt like 5 seconds and continued to float around in their little puddle like nothing happened. That tide might have been small to me, but to those fishes, it was nothing short of a tidal wave of terror. This routine repeated itself over and over again, where the fishes seemed to be bashed and trashed against the rock. The hungry-looking crabs waited in anticipation for their next free meal.

How could something so tiny be teaching me a lesson here? It was like those fishes were taunting me.

" You WUSS! We're here fighting for our lives everyday,
and you're complaining about your history test."

They make a damn good point.