Sunday, March 16, 2008 . 1:33 PM

More short stories..

The boy stepped into the lirary. Its coolness refreshed and cooled his aching muscles; afte all, he had just walked a few kilometres to get there. But it was self-punishment. He wanted to train for his naptha test two months away. Bloody typical Singaporean, he thought to himself. So kiasu. Oh well. Time to borrow books. He walked around briskly, and soon collected most of his book budget. The current library books h had collected numbrd more than 6.

The boy was a true blue bookworm. In a day he could read the six books he collected thus far and boy, they were THICK. Each book was at least 5cm in its width. His bag would be straining when he finally reached home. Which was a 10-minute walk to the bus stop, 45minutes of travel, and 15 minutes home for there. Thankfully the CCA practice made it more covenient.

The boy had a pair of very thick glasses, his school shirt was tucked in neatly and his bag was, let's say, gigantic. But basically his whole body was neat and hi grades were good. He was at first delighted to be in the school but then hated it due to the digusting schoolmates. They taunted him for good grades and pathatic physical stature. But, he supposed, they were in fact envious of him. No matter.

The boy had been reading a trilogy for some days now, determined to savour the delicious books. He was at the last now, and looked along the shelves for the serial number. KIR,wasn't it? He pulled his second book out to confirm. But no, his desired book did not come out. Frantically he emptied out his bag. No desired book. Then after a few moments of panicking he remembered that he had taken out hs book in the hostel, as he so often did. Hopefully his book would be there. And hopefully nobdy had taken it yet.

After hurridly borrowing the books he ran out of the library to the bus stop. The light was still red, and with growing impatience he stood at the junction, unable to move. Then the green man suddenly appeared on the traffic light and he spinted towards his temporary destination, oblivious of the heaviness of his bag and the fact that he just ran the fastest in his life.

Onboard the bus the boy sweated and his chest heaved and fell with every breath he sucked into his burning lungs. In his mind thoughts raced each other around. What if the security guard catches me wearing slippers? What if the book is not there? What if the hostel guard said that he saw it and took it and doesn't want to give it back?What if... Each thought grew grimmer,darker than its predecessor.

He got off the bus one stop too early. But immediately he started running, legs and feet hitting hard upon the hot pavement. He saw the bus overtake him and cursed. "Damn it, why did I become paranoid?" he wondered aloud. But soon he was in the hostel searching for his book.

There it lay! The boy picked it up and hugged it tenderly, and went running off.