Hide and seek

Almost a month now since I last read for the sake of exam. For the past two weeks, I’ve been reading quite a number of books for the sake of reading and it was great! Well, that’s not the main thing.

A while ago, I was lying on the floor of the living room. Then I notice the long time left unnoticed empty space in between the three seats chair and floor. I couldn’t really remember when was the last time I actually had the attempt to crawl or hide beneath the long chair… gee… it must be very long!

If anyone reading this remembers the game we used to play LAST time… when we were in pre-school or perhaps until junior primary school? Hide-and-seek! In school compound, we have the remaining of the school to play it before the bell rings to mark the beginning of the afternoon students’ session. That must be one of the best exercise we had then as we were running to everywhere just to locate the best place to hide before the ONE counted until… 10, 20, 30… or up to 100. It all depends on how big was the area we were playing.

Back at home, I must say that it was very common that we’ll hide our little body beneath the chair or in the cupboard. Basically, no matter how many times we played it, those were the common spot for us to hide and yet, we played the game from time to time until we were old enough to find that the game is no longer an interesting game for us anymore.

Now back to the moment when I saw the empty space beneath the three seats chair. The space looks neither too big nor too small but I made an attempt to slide myself in. Anyway, I found that I couldn’t slide my whole body in anymore like me and my friends used to do last time.
Though I couldn’t slide in, I continued to lie on the floor and laugh to myself. Next, I told myself…

“… they (the adults) used to tell me how lucky I am to be a kid. I watched the television and the actors or actresses used to repeat the same phrase. But I couldn’t really understand why. As a kid myself then, me and my friends used to talk among ourselves – the adults never really know how terrible it is to be a kid. Now that I’ve left my childhood and slowly stepping into the same world of different perspective, I started to understand what used to be cliché to me when I was a kid – it is so nice to be a kid again!...”

Whether a kid or an adult, I am grateful that I am alive.