Once upon a time, there was a bright, but often misunderstood pupil in Grade Five. He sat on the front row and would often sleep in class even if his teacher was at the climax of her subject discussion. Sometimes, he would keep himself awake by writing doodles on his notepad, or bite his dirt-covered nails until it makes a crunchy sound like those of a nail-clipper, or pick his nose and lick whatever gooey object that gets stuck on his right index finger. He was weird, and was declared an outcast because of his habits. His teachers were more inclined to focus their attention towards the mischievous ones - the kids who would hit a fellow pupil with his Coleman jug, or steal a perfumed pen or two from his seatmate's pink plastic pencil case, or compete with the teacher for attention by talking to his friends, who are on the other end of the classroom. Of course, I am a bit exaggerating, but who knows, this story really happened once upon a time.
Anyway this kid hated any subject that had to deal with numbers. His aversion towards anything that needed calculation was so severe, that he found happiness in getting a grade of 79 in all the four quarter periods of the previous school year. He was in Grade Four then. Yet, despite his malady in mathematics, he showed some potentials when it came to literature. Aside from Sibika, it was in Reading that he excelled best.
He loved reading anecdotes - even if he does not fully comprehend what the story was all about. Strange yet this kid understood concepts and meanings and moral lessons, even if sentences took his attention away from imagination. His secret love for letters was so intimate that he was almost at the brink of discovering the written words, when suddenly his teacher took away his dreams and accused him of plagiarism when she asked them to write a Haiku in class.
The Haiku was about a yellow cat,
who slept beside this boy in bed,
and purred and rubbed its furry body against his legs when it gets hungry.
and loved him the way a feline conditionally loved its master.
The kid was so inspired to write the Haiku that he even called on his doodling abilities to illustrate the cat embossed against a blue wall on an Oslo paper. He proudly submitted his work to the teacher, who outrightly declared that his work was a fraud.
Being a mere kid, he does not know how to plead innocent against her accusations. All his life, he was taught not only to respect the elderly, but also accept everything that was told to him by the elders.
And so he kept his guiltless soul within and accepted his fate as the pupil accused of copying from a book.
The best Haikus were plastered on the walls of each classroom the Reading teacher was handling. The pupil's Haiku was nowhere to be seen - no matter how he searched the walls for his misplaced work.
His hopes lie on the teacher, who might have realized that she was throwing a potential talent to waste. Maybe the night she chose the best works, she admitted to herself that her accusation toward her pupil was merely based on impressions and nothing more.
But she didn't retract her statement.
At the end of the quarter, the Haikus were returned to the pupils. The boy received a grade of 80 for all the hard work and inspiration and creativity that he poured on his Haiku.
He felt a slight tinge of pain, but being a young boy, he never understood how it felt like being betrayed by someone who inspired him.
Until many years later, when the man persistently remembers, and can now express in broken words what really happened during that turning point in his life.
And when faced with the dilemma of writing; of the first rejection he received just when he was about to flap his wings and explore the landscape of letters.
The memory becomes a falling shard of glass, tearing his wings apart and pulling him back, face-first on the ground.
Anyway this kid hated any subject that had to deal with numbers. His aversion towards anything that needed calculation was so severe, that he found happiness in getting a grade of 79 in all the four quarter periods of the previous school year. He was in Grade Four then. Yet, despite his malady in mathematics, he showed some potentials when it came to literature. Aside from Sibika, it was in Reading that he excelled best.
He loved reading anecdotes - even if he does not fully comprehend what the story was all about. Strange yet this kid understood concepts and meanings and moral lessons, even if sentences took his attention away from imagination. His secret love for letters was so intimate that he was almost at the brink of discovering the written words, when suddenly his teacher took away his dreams and accused him of plagiarism when she asked them to write a Haiku in class.
The Haiku was about a yellow cat,
who slept beside this boy in bed,
and purred and rubbed its furry body against his legs when it gets hungry.
and loved him the way a feline conditionally loved its master.
The kid was so inspired to write the Haiku that he even called on his doodling abilities to illustrate the cat embossed against a blue wall on an Oslo paper. He proudly submitted his work to the teacher, who outrightly declared that his work was a fraud.
Being a mere kid, he does not know how to plead innocent against her accusations. All his life, he was taught not only to respect the elderly, but also accept everything that was told to him by the elders.
And so he kept his guiltless soul within and accepted his fate as the pupil accused of copying from a book.
The best Haikus were plastered on the walls of each classroom the Reading teacher was handling. The pupil's Haiku was nowhere to be seen - no matter how he searched the walls for his misplaced work.
His hopes lie on the teacher, who might have realized that she was throwing a potential talent to waste. Maybe the night she chose the best works, she admitted to herself that her accusation toward her pupil was merely based on impressions and nothing more.
But she didn't retract her statement.
At the end of the quarter, the Haikus were returned to the pupils. The boy received a grade of 80 for all the hard work and inspiration and creativity that he poured on his Haiku.
He felt a slight tinge of pain, but being a young boy, he never understood how it felt like being betrayed by someone who inspired him.
Until many years later, when the man persistently remembers, and can now express in broken words what really happened during that turning point in his life.
The story of the little boy who was accused of copying a poem still haunts him whenever he begins to write. For he knows, that what the pupil submitted was inspired by his striped-yellow friend who followed him around the house with the tip of its furry tail proudly pointing in mid-air.
And when faced with the dilemma of writing; of the first rejection he received just when he was about to flap his wings and explore the landscape of letters.
The memory becomes a falling shard of glass, tearing his wings apart and pulling him back, face-first on the ground.
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