Visual Trigger

 

“Ah Boy, will you stop moving for 3 seconds? Every time I want to take your photo you move. Like that how to take your photo. You see, still got so many people waiting”, the photographer said to me, while pointing to the queue outside the mini studio that was set up in my kindergarten, for taking our individual graduation photos, holding our graduation certificates and smiling into the camera lenses. I looked desperately at my father, who was standing behind the photographer. He nodded his head in agreement. I had no choice. My father, my father was someone who was very strict, who meant every word that he said but he had a soft side to his personality, he is a person who is very optimistic, and he never gave up on me, even when I was struggling with my schoolwork. Looking back, twelve years have passed by and it has just been too fast; too fast for my liking.

Twelve years later, here I am serving my National Service, with nothing but a PSLE certificate. Not even a ‘N’ Level certificate. Failure was written all over my face as I started my army life. Through out my 2 years in army, after serving finishing BMT (Basic Military Training), I was posted to being a store man. The ‘lowest class’ that one can get after BMT.

It was a horrible two years. Officers, cadets they all looked down on me. It was bad enough, I ended up crying every night, sobbing quietly, not wanting to let my bunkmates find out that I was crying. But it was to be much more worse when I finished my NS. I was homeless; I had lost contact with my parents ever since they had to work overseas when I was 10 years old. I ended up staying with my aunt, but she had passed away. Besides, I was having trouble finding myself a job, just barely surviving on the money that I had learnt to save during my NS. No, it wasn’t because I was too picky or choosy with the jobs, it was just that… just that no one wanted to employ an adult with just a PSLE certificate. I thought to myself, “Even ex-convicts can manage to find a job, even foreign worker manage to find a decent job here in Singapore. And myself. Pathetic!”  I was demoralized, roaming the streets everyday, hoping to find someone who would employ me, bathing at public toilets. Eventually I reached the state where I ran out of money, I resorted to begging people for money, in the underground pass at Orchard Mrt, along the streets of Orchard Road, hoping that someone will me some loose change. In fact, I was living day by day.

Until one day, I saw someone’s hand stretched out towards me. I looked up. He looked familiar, way too familiar. That strict face, yet full of love, he was that someone who never gave up hope on me, but was he still the same?

I reached out, held his hand for the first time in over eight years. I did not know what to expect, I had nothing left, I had nothing to lose.

 

 

Huang Yixi Vicson

S10059493B

T1B2