A Youth

Chapter 1

My name is William Long. I'm 28 years old right now. I am an engineer, pass out from MIT. I work in Google as a software developer. I have a small villa out in Illinois, California.

Looking back, I realize that I had quite a wild youth, with all kinds of mischief and close calls. The earliest memory I have is of my pre-school days, back in London, when I had my first experience of the world's craziness and ruthlessness.

My dad was a chief executive there in HSBC bank. My mom, my dad and I lived in a small, cozy, little apartment with 3 bedrooms and a living-cum-dining room and a kitchen. I was studying in St.Thomas primary school. I had made a couple of friends there and was starting to blend in when something happened which changed my prospect of the world.

It was a normal day at school and after finishing my lunch I was hanging around with my friends outside the classroom, pranking kids walking down the corridor by trying to trip them.

Then a 6th grader came down the corridor and my friend, Jake, said " I dare you my lunch to trip him."

I grinned and said "you're on"

As he passed our gang, we smiled innocently at him. He smiled back at us and kept walking.

I was standing at the end of our line and as he was passing me, I whipped out my leg.

He tripped against it hard and fell face-first to the ground with a sickening thud.

For a second there was complete silence in the hallway.

Then me and my friends burst out laughing. We laughed so hard that there were tears coming from our eyes.

Then the guy got up, and walked towards me, balling his fists. "You think that's funny, huh? Then laugh this off too!" He said and punched me hard in the gut.

Then my friends started running at the guy, screaming and punching. I sat there, trying to catch my breath and then I saw a few 6 graders coming down the corridor. They had already seen their friend getting beat up.

"Shit" I mummered to myself and yelled to my friends "Guys, more hostiles inbound"

Jack whipped his head around and saw this guy's friends came running for him.

From then, it was my gang versus his.

Thankfully, all the teachers were in their staffrooms and therefore, there wasn't anyone around except students.

Punches and kicks were going every-which way. But that guy and I concentrated only on each other. We kept hitting each other, rolling on the ground and trying to get on our feet. But then, as I was giving him a left hook, he got behind me, grabbed me by my collar, and tried to throw me against a wall.

Unfortunately, for me, as he was a year older and many pounds heavier, he succeeded.

I slammed against the wall, back first. I slowly slumped down against the wall.

My back felt like it had gone through a metal processing unit. It felt like I had broken all the bones in my spine. The pain was so intense that I almost passed out. And that's when I met my first love.