R E D ! [Under Revisions/Editings]

"Rough Childhood"

The year was, 1997..

It was what they called as the "Asian Financial Crisis". The whole Asia was in deep mire and extreme poverty.
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My papa and mama left me..
I was a kid back then.
I don't know what to do.
I don't know where to go.

After our house was sold, my mother's sister, my aunt, was forced to become my legal guardian. She don't like me much, and I don't like her either.
She always beat me with a stick....
almost everyday.

She's quite sadistic in my very own opinion. She just love to punch me and kick me, with or without reason. She called my folks as fools who died in vain..

She had a live-in partner, and I thought he had some unusual or perhaps pedophilic sexual behavior.
He was always trying to molest me. He was always trying to abuse me - in a most horrid and hideous way..
He always tried to hold my private part and tried to showed me his.
"Swallow it," he said, "or else I'll kill you.."
But I won't.. I don't.. not even a chance..
So, he would beat me also like a punching bag while lying on the floor.

All I could do was to cover my body with my soft, brittle and feeble arms and hands, to minimize the beatings from my 'precious uncle' (well that's sarcastic).
That experience was a traumatizing experiene for a poor young lad like me.

I don't know where I am. I believe in heaven and hell, and perhaps, the day my mama left me, I lived everyday in hell with my aunt and her partner.

From the private school I'm studying, I was forced to study in a government school.
I saw how the huge problem of the educational system in the Philippines.
Almost 70 students shared in a tiny old place called classroom.  Almost half of the students sat on the floor, because there's no seat available to cater those huge number of students. We also don't have new books. A book was distributed in a five-to-one ratio, meaning FIVE students shared in ONE book. Well, if your parents have enough money, you could have the book photocopied.. But in my cold-blooded case (well, that's an overstatement), I don't have the right to demand or make a request to my brutal aunt and uncle.

I usually had bruises all over my face and my feeble body upon entering the class. One time, I came to school with a bruised eye, so the class adviser asked me, " What had happened Red?".
But, with a sarcastic smile on my face, I just always answered, "HIT ON SOMETHING STUPID".

But though the tidings were high, I still managed to be on the top in every subject, and on everyone in the class..
I always got perfect grades..
I tried and worked hard as hard as I can, as a promise to my dearest mama.
Whenever I am becoming hopeless, I just remembered all the word she had said, and all the stories she had told, and put them in my heart..

I guess, its a very rough childhood.
Everyday and everytime I went to the bathroom to take a bath, I always cried while pouring my head with water, because, I don't want to see myself in tears..
I like the feeling of water rushing down my face, as if its the one pouring, and not the pain, the agony, the anguish, inside my heart, directly falling from my eyes.

"I would study hard.. And one day, mama and papa will be proud.. ", I said to myself while CRYING.

Like the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, I was also stucked in a deep mire and I don't know how to flee...

But like my father and my mother who had always been brave in many of their struggles, I also said, "No retreat, no surrender.."

And life goes on and on and on for me.. I ate punches for lunch and beatings for supper... 💔