A Thirty-Year Saga

1985: 20 YEARS AGO

The beatings started in 1984. It was now 85. Mom had been going to school to see the principal. Her boy was getting his ass kick and he wasn't fighting back. But her visits didn't help any. Paramjeet wasn't simply a naughty kid or the school bully. Something about the way he laughed revealed his mental condition. No amount of caning would work on the boy.

"Are you worried about embarassing me?" Mom asked. She had always instructed her kid to be on his best behaviour. And that means no fighting. We were a peace-loving family and I was expected not to be the black sheep.

I nodded my head and resumed counting my toes.

"Hit him back," Mom's voice changed. I looked up and saw an Amazon Queen towering over me, the sweat on her brow glistening in the sunlight. "I want you to hit him back," the queen commanded, articulating every single word. And her loyal subject knew she meant business.

In 1985, I hit back. And I hit hard. I hit whenever I was hit. And soon, I just hit whenever I felt like it. Oh no, Paramjeet never did stop trying to torment me. Not even when I beat him till he cried. At the end of that year, my anger turned to pity. Paramjeet wasn't malicious. He was just plain nuts afflicted with a mental condition. And at that very moment, James the boy became James the Man.

At Christmas that year, the Man groped a little girl's ass. Heh. But that's another story for another day! Who wants to hear it? :)

1995: 10 YEARS AGO

Anuar left. He'd been embezzling company funds. He was the partner, but we were also good friends. Would she think I was a part of it? Would she fire me? Or worse yet, would she report me to the police? Where was Anuar?

Then it sank in. The bastard left me to take the heat.

She calls me in. The room lights were off, as usual. I stood before her huge mahogany desk and squinted my eyes to make out her face in the darkness. "I'm making you partner," she said in her mild-mannered fashion. And just like that, at 24, I became the director of a small, fledging advertising agency. That year, we would turn it around.

We did brisk business until it all went sour in 1998. I never saw a single cent of my supposed partnership.

2000: 5 YEARS AGO

The new company was already 2 years old. This one, too, was having its share of partnership problems. Unlike me, I realised too late, people never really like to share.

I like to share.

In fact, I liked it so much I was sharing a girl with another guy. She was rightfully his, simply because he was there first. But then, he was never really there. He was on the other side of the Causeway mostly, and so I filled in for him.

She loved me, she said. But she would never leave him for me. In the end, she left. And when she did, I died. I was only 29.

But in that very same year, I was Born Again. He brought me back and promised me the world. I asked if He would make it all right again. He didn't answer; at least not in words.

But things happened. The partner left and the company flourished. Business was good once again. I bought a home. And Mae came into my life. And subsequently, into my home.

2002: 3 YEARS AGO

I was 31 when I realised that it was possible to love someone enough to want to spend the rest of my life with her. And so Mae and I got married. It was July 27. It rained like crazy that day, like it sometimes does in life. But just like our wedding day, whenever it rained, we just went indoors and made the best of it.

2004: A YEAR AGO

One day, while indoors and making the best of it *ahem*, we made ourselves a baby. Jesse came into our lives on August 26. At 33, I was a father for the first time. It was a crazy year but Mae and I enjoyed every moment of it. Almost.

2005: THIS YEAR

Jesse turns 1. Mae and I are no longer spring chickens. It's getting hard to keep up with the boy. And so I enrol in a gym for the first time in my life. I also begin a program to help me finish reading the bible in a year.

2006: NEXT YEAR

By then Jesse would have gotten tired of playing with us all the time. We'd have to make a companion for him. I hear little girls are nice to have around the house. With a new mouth to feed, Mae and I will have to find other means to bring home the bacon. Perhaps a new business venture - one that actually makes money. Heh. By now I would be 35, and having completed the bible, I can finally talk like a smart ass. :)

2015: TEN YEARS FROM NOW

Mae and I retire to Ayer Tawar or some other small town where we own a tiny but profitable little business serving breakfast to the townsfolk. And when the kids come home, we'd sit by our little duck pond chowing down dinner and watching the sun set.

Thanks Bob. That was more fun that I expected! I'm tagging Gina. Also AhPink whom I expect to blog this pictorially. :)