Member-only story
The Long Dark Roads of Life
“That smell, although apparently disgusting, was a strange synonym for happiness.”
A tender moment occurred during the week when I was a pre-teen. I didn’t know it then, but I would miss it much later in adulthood. It was the moment when I got home after school. Banal, isn’t it? But it was so much more than that.
At the time of winter, when the days are short, and it gets dark early, we would leave school already in the dark. We would then dash to catch the bus that would take us close to home.
We, the kids, were all from different villages, so we waited in different areas on the pavement outside our school. It almost seemed as if there was a competition to see which bus would arrive first, such was the hurry for us to get home too.
I couldn’t complain much, although it seems that complaining is in my blood. In fact, humbling myself a little, I was one of the luckiest. My village was just around five km away from school, going up the mountain.
When we arrived at the bus stop in my village, the bus would drop us off always in the same spot. And then, we all headed towards our houses. Some were middle class. Some were so poor that it would rain inside their room… Rich kids? They would not take the bus; there were also any.
