I Am Always Exhausted
A day in 1989.
It was a tiring day in school. There was a tutorial late into the afternoon and a test was coming up the next day. The A levels were to be taken in another few months' time. I had not slept much the previous night as I was trying to finish my tutorial papers. There were also ensemble practices and performances to take care of. My sightreading was bad and there was a lot to catch up on.
I was on the upper deck of the bus. The windows were open but the heat and the humidity made me drowsy. The thing on my mind was that I needed to finish my revision the first thing I came back to the flat. It had rained the past few days and I had to calculate in my mind how many days my current set of uniform could last me as the last set was not dry yet. I had neither a washing machine nor a dryer. And when I went to school, my clothes hung in the house on bamboo sticks with the windows closed. Maths revision. Dry uniforms. I drifted off to sleep with those thoughts.
I do not know how long it was but when I awoke with a start, there was no one else on the bus. It was parked at the bus bay at the interchange already. Everyone else had alighted. I squinted against the light and saw some people at the waiting area pointing at me. Next, I saw the bus driver running towards the bus. I rushed down with my bag and my file. The bus driver was apologetic. I came out of that bus wishing I had a paper bag to cover my face, because the whole waiting area was full of waiting passengers and they had seen me trapped in the bus.
I must have been so exhausted.
Sometimes I like to imagine how nice it would be to just sleep and never wake up.
It was a tiring day in school. There was a tutorial late into the afternoon and a test was coming up the next day. The A levels were to be taken in another few months' time. I had not slept much the previous night as I was trying to finish my tutorial papers. There were also ensemble practices and performances to take care of. My sightreading was bad and there was a lot to catch up on.
I was on the upper deck of the bus. The windows were open but the heat and the humidity made me drowsy. The thing on my mind was that I needed to finish my revision the first thing I came back to the flat. It had rained the past few days and I had to calculate in my mind how many days my current set of uniform could last me as the last set was not dry yet. I had neither a washing machine nor a dryer. And when I went to school, my clothes hung in the house on bamboo sticks with the windows closed. Maths revision. Dry uniforms. I drifted off to sleep with those thoughts.
I do not know how long it was but when I awoke with a start, there was no one else on the bus. It was parked at the bus bay at the interchange already. Everyone else had alighted. I squinted against the light and saw some people at the waiting area pointing at me. Next, I saw the bus driver running towards the bus. I rushed down with my bag and my file. The bus driver was apologetic. I came out of that bus wishing I had a paper bag to cover my face, because the whole waiting area was full of waiting passengers and they had seen me trapped in the bus.
I must have been so exhausted.
Sometimes I like to imagine how nice it would be to just sleep and never wake up.
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