RECURRING CHARACTERS.
SEASON 1
Episodes
1-9
It
was my first year of high school.
I did not know that I would listen to even
more Beatles songs. I did not that I would encounter Pet Sounds. I did not know that I would make it to both the top
Maths and English groups. I did not
know that The Catcher In The Rye would
soon prevent me from frequenting the ‘Children’s Books’ section in the Maru-a-Pula School library. And I certainly did not
know that holding a girl’s hand could feel so awesome.
But
that was the beauty of it all: I didn’t know.
Episodes 10-11
It was just about the end of my Form
One year in high school when I was busy telling Sofia that we will not be in
the same class next year. Unfortunately, as I was telling her, I could barely
suppress a very odd and inappropriate urge to laugh. This was, of course, until
I looked into her eyes and saw how the white classroom lights were reflecting
off the Arab gems of her irises. Her eyes were brown, poignant, amber.
Thus I
began to notice that yes, our little first-year-of-high-school romance was, in
fact, a big deal and that yes, I was totally screwing it up with my incessant ambition.
I think that it was our third month ‘anniversary.’ I do not remember. All I
remember was that I had spent the better part of my break time waiting in the
tuck shop line to buy her a Kit-Kat to commemorate us (again).
“Why?”
“Well,
uhm, I was offered.”
To be
fair, my initial reaction when my parents told me was the same reaction I gave
then when I had been entering both Grades Three and Seven: “no.” But somehow, the lustrous allure radiated by
the words ‘grade skipper’ were too bright to ignore. So it became an
uncontrollable craving, like later asking Sofia if she would mind giving me a
snap of the Kit Kat I just gave to her. I do not remember if I actually did
this or not.
Even
so I hugged her and told her how much I loved her and she, I think, told me how
much she loved me; and she was quite warm and soft and we both didn’t, I think,
want to let go but we had to let go because we had Drama for our next period
and break-time was suddenly over; and she didn’t want to be late while I
didn’t really care whether I was on time or not; and also because the nature of life
involves letting go and even the use of full stops.
Episode
12
Later,
a few evenings later, I would be given the big, thick, threatening French book
I was to use in class the next year. Once I had weighed it in my palms I felt hints
of tears swelling up in two normally dry dams. This could not, I thought, be
life. This could not be life.
SEASON
3
Episode
7
Aabi
died.
SEASON 4
Episodes 1-6
After
some time, Sofia and I decided that no, grade skipping was certainly not enough
to keep our love apart, and so we got back together again after a year of
mutual loneliness.
Nobody
had warned us about how bad it would turn out to be, or rather, no one had
warned me about how bad it would turn
out to be.
Well,
one person sort of did.
Amrit
Amar and I became best friends on the first day that I came to Form Three after
Form One, and he pretty much hated anything involving people that did not
involve computers. I was only a possible exception to this rule.
His
dislike of Sofia stemmed from a lot of things that need not be mentioned.
Needless to say my attempts to incite goodwill towards her were largely futile.
He would not even acknowledge that she was beautiful, or at the very least
pretty and/or cute.
The
only thing that he did acknowledge about her was what he deemed to be a severe
lack of intelligence, but Amrit pretty much deemed this a characteristic of
most people in the world, myself included. While I did not share his sentiments
about Sofia, I did in small part, kind of, maybe even, slightly have, agreed.
It
was far too difficult for me to have an intelligent conversation with Sofia
than it should’ve been. In fact, most of our conversations were about how
perfect we were for each other for whatever simple and sweet reasons we
could possibly fathom and god forbid…
whether I looked good in skinny jeans or not.
The
answer is and was no. I do not and did not care what she said and says.
Though
these things didn’t matter, I still loved her anyway, even if Amrit did think
she was stupid.
I
mean, I was very sure she wasn’t.
Episode 7
Aabilwe
Modise, at the age of fifteen, in her third year of high school at Maru-a-Pula
School, became the victim of Darwin’s genetics and died of cancer. It was not
Darwin’s fault, nor was it God’s, but it was useless attempting to blame the
‘cold unfeeling universe.’
I met
Aabilwe in Creative Writing in my first year of high school, and chose to go
into her and Amrit’s form class when I had decided to skip a grade. Aabi would
take me outside the world of silly love poems- we even once started debating
over whether Holden himself was a phony. We were, however, unable to finish our
conversation- she had to go to soccer practice and I was never man enough to
kick a ball after primary school.
Basically,
Aabi was the reason why it became routine for me to think thoughts such as
this…
“I don’t believe that’s the roar of God
out there,
it’s probably just the wind or crickets,
who don’t
burn so bright and distant; screaming in
the dark.
Sound doesn’t travel through vacuums
anyway so
it’s funny
that I can still hear you
whispering through my phone.”
…But
that was from a love poem that wasn’t even for her. I didn’t know why, but the
words just felt appropriate. Maybe it was because, today, I still stupidly
tried to call her phone a year after I knew she had died.
I
still wished her goodnight as, in the dark, I collided into my pillow.
Episodes 8-9
Of
course Sofia and I had broken up once again and of course it was far too painful
to describe.
(I
spent most of the school holiday helping Amrit build a robot hand (no joke) and
watching Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and
nearly crying at the bits that reminded me of her. I was miserable. On the plus
side, I also started liking another girl called Aria.)
Episode 10
Much
to the contrary of this narrative, I had reached a point in my life where it
was very clear to me that I am not the protagonist of this world…perhaps even
of my own life.
The
former was not so distressing to realize. It was a fairly obvious conclusion to
come to ever since I had picked up my first book. The latter, I thought, was
far more concerning; that in my own life I may not be my own most important
person.
But
was it really such a shock to me that Sofia was more interested in another guy
now? Or would that question make room for some character development? I didn’t
know.
I
didn’t know, I didn’t know, I do not know.
Though
I guessed that I would just have to keep writing about all of it anyways; even
if it so happened that I was only Nick Carraway and everyone else would get to
be Gatsby and everybody else would get to be Daisy. Fair enough. I was never
one for drowning or not drowning in my expensive pool in my expensive house;
nor was I ever one for running around with men I do and do not love because
they do or do not have money.
All I
wanted, all I needed... was just a happy ending.
That
was all.
And I
would have liked to live one out and not just to have written one.
That’s
what I would have liked the most-
A
happy ending.
Episode 11
But
those were the thoughts that I had surrendered the moment I had first kissed
Aria.
I did
not feel the need to write a lot about Aria because I had thought I had grown up.
I had learned that to like or love someone doesn’t mean that you have to be a
total Hopeless Romantic about it.
You just have to go ahead and do it and hope
that they won’t like or love another person far too soon after you break up…
And
that’s pretty much all there is to it.
Amrit,
much to my joy, had deemed my new relationship to be far more suitable than the
old one. Thus him violently and viciously condemning Sofia to make me feel
better did not make me feel worse anymore. It only made me feel bittersweet.
I had
decided not to make a big deal out of Aria and I because that was the problem
last time- I had tried very hard to novelize my life and I had somehow ended up
as a minor character. It also helped that I was suddenly old enough to try asking
Aria how she felt before or instead of trying to poeticize everything on my
blog.
Though
I admitted to myself that old habits die hard- I often found it nice to imagine
that those times when I kissed Aria were my happy endings, the ones that I
spent so much time dreaming of.
I
also liked that I thought, by that logic, I may be able to live and die a few
more times tomorrow.
Episode
12
