Serendipity

The time is nearly 3am. I'm still up, chatting with a colleague of mine at SS. Suddenly we talked about secondary school days. I bet everyone has some special memories during that period of time right? =)
For example, for me, I really love my secondary school library... it is a place where I can be alone and at peace. I still remember there are lots of books and comics to read!

The distant memory I'm about to disclose means alot to me... and whenever I recalled it, I will feel quite emotional about it.

I still remember it happened during my upper secondary school years. My friend HZ and I were so bored that we checked out the vandalism on our tables. Haha, you know there were always people writing stupid stuff on the table!
As I was saying, we were very very bored so an idea just strike us! We decided to write something like

"Hi! Would you like to be my penpal?".

on the table. I remembered it was on a friday that we wrote that particular question. We would never thought anyone would reply us.

Then over the weekend, someone did reply! The reply was a positive one so HZ and I then started to write letters introducing ourselves etc etc.. to and fro to that person. We did not divulge our real names in the the letter so we gave ourself pen-names when we correspond with him/her. Our names were Panther and Shape-Shifter. We were always very excited to receive the replied letters! Somehow this person was god-sent. Our school days were not boring anymore as we looked forward to receiving the letters.

For once we wonder how was this person like... somehow, our imagination went overdrive, we thought he/she might be a pyscho or something so we stopped writing letters to that person immediately. But this person still wrote to us, he/she did questioned us why did we stopped writing to him/her.

Anyway, we then wanted to find out who was this person who constantly wrote to us because at that time, we were in the morining session and the class was occupied by the afternoon session after we were done using the class. So we concluded it must be someone from lower secondary.

That day we discovered it was a pretty chinese-indo girl sitting at my seat. So we confronted her whether was it her who replied our letters. But she denied having writing those letters. There was nothing we could do so we went off...

A few days went pass... and Monday came. To our surprise, there under the table space where you could put books, was a note and a Slam Dunk(in one of our correspondences, we mentioned we are huge fans of Slam Dunk) bookmark.
We opened and read...

"2 Shape & Pant,
Remember me! Tell u the truth, actually I don't school here.
I came here only on last sat and I explore the whole school with
Caroline*, then I came 2 your class & saw your table + question**
so I just wrote my name down. I guess you start writing 2 me on
Monday, when Caroline found out then everytime you wrote 2 me,
Caroline will bring home to tell me. Actually I'm home staying at
Caroline's house. I'm going back to England today(Monday). Here
4 u 2 remember me. I spend 30 min writing it nicely, hope u will
appreciate it. Sorry 4 lying 2 u all the time. 4give me ok! If not I
won't leave in peace!
Ciao!

Lee '97

ps: Don't accused Caroline of writing the letter, her handwriting is
not so bad. "

*:Caroline was the pretty chinese-indo girl.
**: The question was "Hi do you want to be penpal?"


After reading the note, it dawned on us that the person who replied our letter was not a pyscho. We were upset that Lee was gone. And that we did not write to him during the time we were doubting about him. He left us a note and a Slam Dunk bookmark. in the end, HZ took the bookmark while I took the note. From that day onwards, I carried that note in my wallet.

I guess not everyone encounter such unusual, interesting and almost-romantic way of befriending another person right? Is fate not a funny thing? It arranges us to meet him this way but when the time is up, he just left our life so quickly. Lee will be forever remain a mystery to us... and a bittersweet memory. Sometimes, some things are easily forgetten, but serendipity like this will always remain to be a part of us.

Whenever I took out the note to read, I will always wonder how is Lee, what is he doing, is he doing fine? Although I will never see him again, I will always say a little prayer for him, hoping that he has already found happiness wherever he is.