From the past

There is a village not too far away from here, and every morning Robin would wake up and go to school. He enjoys being in school since he would meet his friends, friends who, like him, have enrolled in the school to gain education and perhaps earn a scholarship to go to the college in the city where i am in. Robin would spend most of his time in school, and in the morning he would be learning about grammar, mechanics behind how things work and how market forces work in everyday life. in the afternoon he would then meet up with his school mates at the river beside the school building to train for the upcoming village's annual water polo championship. From a boy, he had witnessed countless water polo matches and you could probably say that water polo was part and parcel of his life.

In school, he hangs around with a group of friends along with two friends he was always seen around with daily. They would attend lessons together, catch butterflies together and even fish in the river when they could not think of anything to do. During break, the 3 of them would be seen talking about water polo trainings, the art of catching butterflies and anything under the sun. Robin always believed that the 3 of them would always be together in the years to come. Finally, they graduated from school and had learnt everything the school could offer them. Robin and his friends had all been offered water polo scholarships to play for the college where I am. However, one of robin's friend decided to remain in the village and applied what he had learnt from the village school. As such, Robin and his other friend parted farewell to him and moved on to college. (To simplify matters, the friends would be identified as scholar and villager).

In college, Robin constantly writes letters to villager whenever there was time. Every now and then , villager and Robin would meet up to catch up with each another. Scholar would join them occasionally, whenever he isn't having his personal water polo training. As time went by, scholar’s appearance became less frequent as he would take time off to improve himself in water polo. He had a dream, to play for the state. With the upcoming water polo inter-college championships, he was hoping he would be scouted for by the state scouts looking for young talents. Not long after, scholar managed to get scouted and was transferred to a larger city. He had decided that water polo would be his main priority and his dream was now to be the captain of the state's team. Education for him would come later. With his busy schedule, Robin realised that meet ups with scholar was and would be rare and often wondered how scholar must now be doing and whether he did remember Robin and all the times they had together in the village school.

After one year in college, Robin decided to stop going to college and landed a job at a swimming pool as a lifeguard. His job was easy. To overlook the safety of the pool users. Still in touch with his school teacher, he found out that villager had become successful, founding a new manufacturing firm. however, he was also told that villager had also married. After hearing the news, initially surprise turned into disappointment after the news had sunk in. He was glad that his friend had finally found his future happiness. However, he had been kept in the dark and the fact that he had to learn this piece of news from a 3rd party and not from the mouth of the villager irked him. Looking back, he realised that he did not meet up with villager as frequent as villager would often be busy with work or working OT. He realised that as much as he believes villager scholar and himself were inseparable in the past, they were now individuals and each were living their own lives. He is totally clueless as to how scholar is coping now as he seldom writes to him these days after the last three mails had gone unanswered. Many a times, Robin did wonder if he was merely just an acquaintance to scholar. Villager by now had his own group of friends in the village and Robin realised that it was now difficult for them to talk. He is now a successful businessman, and Rrobin isn't comfortable with the presence of rich successful people for he is nothing more than a city dweller. Robin believes that villager would not be interested in his life. As such, even when they do meet up, they couldn't really converse since they were now of a different status. Villager had given up water polo long ago and robin isn't interested in the consequences of the falling yen and rising oil prices.

In the college and city, robin did meet new people but he didn't really interact much with them, often choosing to be alone reading story books. Adapting to life in the city had been tough and he didn't really like the people in the city as they were too caught up with the rat race. Robin knew it wouldn't be long before they would lose contact with them since his workplace employs part time workers. There are a few permanent workers and Robin could relate well with them. Robin had saved up enough to bring his family over from the village and even though he would have dinner with them on most days, he still felt lonely after work. He watches water polo matches on weekends and join in trainings at his workplace when he wasn't on duty and yet he realised there was something missing in his life. He would often think of the happy days he had in school, his water polo trainings, the fun he had with his classmates in the village school. Robin doesn't blame villager and scholar for he knows that everyone has to move on with his life. Robin thought that he had a wide circle of friends in the village but upon coming to the city, he realised that the circle isn't that large after all. One day after reading who moved my cheese, he realised that he had been unwilling to change to his environment. However he had a problem, despite knowing that he has to change, he feels that he doesn't know how to change. or more importantly he doesn't know where to start.

^_^

I chanced upon this story that I had written 2 years ago. And i did remembered asking some people about what they thought of the story, and Robin. I did received a few compliments for it, but looking back at it now, I find it lacking and falling short of what I had thought it was. I have no idea if the story was supposed to have a better ending or I had digress about what I had originally set out to write.