Morning, Sunshine!!! (fiction)
-How many people in the world are
given life each morning and how many of them really thank for it?-
Each
and every morning I am always woken up by the shaft of sunlight which lingers
through the small ventilation holes of my room window. The light lightens up
the stuffs in my room one by one. At first, it lingers on the wall, makes some
part of my brown-painted-wall a bit brighter. As it goes further, it passes my
family portrait I hang on the wall. Slowly but truly, the sunlight finally
reaches my eyes and wakes me from my sleep.
As
I wake up, my senses start to work one by one before I become fully conscious.
I start to recognize the smell of edelweiss all over my room. On every New
Year’s Eve, my brother, Jim always climb the nearest mountain to celebrate the
new year with his friends and the next morning I would have found a bunch of
edelweiss he has picked illegally from somewhere on the mountain, which is laid
on the floor, right in front of my room door. Every New Year, I would replace
the old edelweiss with the new ones, but still put them in the same old blue
vase. When my ears start to work, I can hear the chirps of birds calling from
outside of the window. Responding that, I open my window and greet the nature
by saying, “Morning, sunshine!”
Every
morning, I would find a bowl of hot potato soup served on the dining table.
Life seems so easy for us here, even for my brother and I who do not enter
university after we graduated from high school. My family doesn’t earn a lot of
money, but since we live in quite a rural area where the Mother Nature makes
all things we need for our daily needs are available, then money is never been
a problem for us.
I do not have any schooling
burden that I feel free doing whatever I want. I can freely spend my everyday
to hang out with friends without having even a slice of guilty feeling.
However, sometimes I feel a bit bored with the life I live. I sometimes parable
myself as a fish in an aquarium, because I only see and do the same things over
and over. Therefore, my mind is full of excitement when my uncle, Sam comes to
visit us and ask me and Jim to go to his house in the capital city. I am
expecting something to happen in my life onward.
After
about two hours of flight and an hour of taxi ride, we finally arrive to the
capital city. Many things have changed here since my last visit seven years
ago. This city is more crowded than ever. More buildings seem to be crammed
here, which make it looks so unorganized. Seeing this view makes me suffered
from a headache in a sudden. No wonder if there are more urban people get
stressed nowadays which even may lead them to suicide. I see that the
population here has also increased, which makes it even worse. As a result,
there are more homeless people I can see along the way to my uncle’s house. Those
poor people I used to see only on TV, I finally witness them myself. It makes
me wonder why they don’t just live in a sort of rural place like mine to have a
better living. I also find so many small children whose age probably around
seven become beggars here. Children who should be at school and focusing only
on their study, are given by their parents the burden to earn money for their
living, something that has to be the responsibility of the parents, not their
kids yet.
During
our stay in Uncle Sam’s house, our cousin Lisa who is in the third year of her
study in university tells us many things about university life. Each and every
detail Lisa tells makes Jim gets more curious on university life. When Jim’s
curiosity reaches the climax, he can’t help to see the university himself.
We
go to the university by train early in the morning, but it doesn’t help us from
avoiding to get the overload train. The train is so crowded that we can hardly
breathe. We suffered more each time we have to move aside to give way for
people who sell stuffs in train. However, there is something in the train that
makes me amazed. In this overcrowded train, where all the passengers push each
other to get a more comfortable spot, there is an old couple of husband and
wife singing in the train to earn money for their living. A few seconds later,
I also realize that they are not just old, but they are also handicapped. I
don’t see any iris on their eyes. Their eyes have no other color than white.
Considering their age, I guess their eyes might have been calcified, I don’t
know for sure. The husband keeps leading their way in the train, while his wife
holds on to him. On his hands, the man holds a kind of music box that has a
microphone on it. He sings some old songs which I guess might be popular at the
time I hadn’t born, since for me they don’t sound familiar at all.
Seeing that view, my mind is suddenly
filled with loads of questions and thoughts like, “They don’t have a good
eyesight, aren’t they afraid if people push them out of the train? Aren’t they
afraid of being injured or even of losing their life for what they do?” What I
see in train somehow makes me realize of how some people struggle hard just to
keep survive. It makes me realize how precious life is and how I have taken my
life for granted this far. If there are some people who have to struggle hard
to keep survive, then people who are given life without struggling that hard,
like me and my brother should have been using it for something.
After
getting out of the train, we see the campus expo. My brother seems so excited.
He goes to each of the stands there and collects all the brochures provided by
the committee. Peculiarly, I don’t enjoy visiting the campus expo that much. I
guess my mind now is may be full of guilty feeling and regret that I cannot put
ant interest on any other things.
At night, when we’re watching TV at my
uncle’s house, Jim asks whether there is anything wrong because he feels that
I’ve been so quiet today. I decide to share my thoughts to Jim, Lisa, and uncle
Sam. After I finished telling them what I have in mind, then Lisa asks me about
what do I want to do next. I really have no idea of what to do that ask them
back, what do they think I should do. My uncle then suggests me to do any voluntary
work or join any NGO as he does. I really want to join it, but I doubt that I
will be accepted to work there, considering that I am only a high school
graduate. My uncle doesn’t know for sure either, but he invites me to go to the
secretariat of the NGO he works for and find whether I can do something for
them. He also offers to pay Jim’s tuition fee if he really intends to continue
his study in university. My brother is surprised with what our uncle’s offer.
Personally, he accept Uncle Sam’s offer, but he will still ask for the
permission from our parents as soon as we return home.
To get the information we
need in the NGO secretariat, my uncle just have to ask to his colleague. Soon, I find out that they do
not only allow me to do voluntary work for them, but even really supports me to
join their program. I will do the closest voluntary program which will be done
next month and join the training start from next week. I am happy that my life
will soon become something meaningful not just for me, but for others as well.
PS: It is actually more like a draft rather than a story.
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