Winners of A.C.T.S Essay Competition 27th theme:HOPE

1st: Megan Alessa Cecilia Garcia Apostol, 16, TKGS

Tick Tock, goes the clock. Time takes us all away.

Tick Tock, goes the clock. What now shall we play?

Tick Tock, goes the clock. Let’s make it nice and fair.

Tick Tock, goes the clock. I’ll turn one body into a pair.

A light figure darted in between slumbering hobos. The dull roar of cars overhead did nothing to disturb them from their precious sleep, neither did the fingers cooler than the chilly nights spent beneath the highway forcefully yanking dark green and iodine brown glass bottles from their iron grips. They didn’t even stir when the fairy-like being sliced off their fingers if they failed to relinquish their holds. Maybe the warm blood seeping into the scraps of their clothing was a welcome change to the deathly cold evenings.

The illuminated silhouette stood as a stark contrast to the grime deep-set in her surroundings. She was an ethereal being in the midst of cold concrete and the sulfuric yellow glare of street lamps. Dainty feet hopped through the dried and cracking mud in dainty pink ballerina slippers. The coloured glass bottles of acrid-smelling spirits did not go hand in hand with this form.

Once she was satisfied with the distance she had placed between herself and the bums, she flung the glass hard above her. For a split-second, they were suspended in midair. She even when the shards exploded around her. Glass collided with glass and flesh. Larger pieces bounced off of each other and embedded themselves deep into her skin, slicing off bits of her clothes, creating new blossoms to adorn her. She admired the cuts with barely-concealed pleasure. She ran, farther, leaving a trail a crimson trail invisible to everyone but those with eyes to see. The parched soil welcomed her offering, lapping up the drops as the substitute for the coveted rain drops.

She finally came to a road lined with uniform rows of bungalows. A vehicle was driving slowly towards her. Stumbling unto its’ path, she screamed. Naturally, the vehicle stopped. People poured out to help in frantic dismay. Screams to call the police, an ambulance. She begged them hysterically not to, he’ll find her, please, save her. She saw the first round in her favour, a game being won. They saw a little girl bleeding to death. They acquisced to her demand, drove her to their home at the end of the street, welcomed and hid her in a room with the promise of rest, food and medical attention.

It was a good venue. A good playing field. Plenty of ways for them to take advantage of her. Plenty of ways for them to keep her in. Plenty of ways for her to turn the tables. They had a chance. It was fair. It was decent. It was a fight. She wouldn’t deform them much. Because that’s the way the game was played: tempering the monster and the killer and the innate propensity for evil.

“Mommy, Daddy, Brother, Sissy, Uncle, Aunty, Granny, Grampy, Friend” she would whisper in a sing song voice as the people came, by themselves or as a pair, like the vicious haunting chants of children in playgrounds of queens locked in a tower or humanoid eggs plummeting to their irreversible doom. Then came a flash of silver burying itself within the unwitting victims, replaced with glassy eyes and gaping mouths.

It was funny when they tried to fight, when they forced themselves out of the initial shock and hurl themselves at her. They looked so hilarious, stumbling around with a knife sticking out of their chests, or their heads. But she learned enough to not underestimate her opponents. It would make the game so much less fun. But being in this position of power thrilled her. It was a challenge; it made killing them a lot less boring.

She dragged one of the bodies undereath the ceiling fan. Hoping for a challenge and a centre piece, she slit its’ stomach and pulled out the intestines with the tip of her knife. Throwing the makeshift rope up, it wrapped itself around the axel. She switched on the fan — slowly the blades began to turn. The body ascended, towards the fan, whirling round and round and when the stomach touched the blades, it began to hack of bits of its’ flesh.

Body parts began to spew across the room. Intestinal fluids would explode like tiny fireworks, showering the walls and the ceiling with long streaks of vermillion and bile. She closed her eyes and tilted her head up, letting the warm drops land and trickle down her skin. The steady buzz of the fan blades calmed her burning spirit.

She lined the others about the room. Hanging them up corners of book shelves, suspending them on the wardrobe doors by their innards. It smeared the walls with blood. Twisted decorations, dripping around the room. She prided herself in the strength it took to carry the heavy bodies up and to string them up all prettily. They were like wooden puppets, acting as sentinels of their corners of the room, guarding her creation.

As the blood settled into the floorboards and the plaster and the sheets, she opened a small bottle. The homely scent of gingerbread cookies wafted through the air, like smoke forcing itself out of a lit cigarette, and diffused throughout the room. With a deep breath, she stood back to admire her work.

Sniffling came from the door and it creaked open to unveil the shadow of a toddler, rubbing sleep from his eyes with one hand and clinging on to a raggedy teddy bear ferociously with the other. The bloody fairy girl picked him up in a breath and snapped his neck. The child then hung limply from her arms and she trudged through the flood to gently place his body on the bed.

She picked up his teddy bear and tucked it under his arm, like a mother tucking her child in for the night. She undid a ribbon from her dress and tied it around the bear’s neck, a strangling noose. She brushed the child’s hair back and kissed his forehead.

“Night night, baby Ginger.”

Her gaze drifted to the blood-spattered wall clock. New record time. “Should have been more creative,” she chastises herself. When she leaves the house, she closes the door behind her carefully. She sighed in happy anticipation of the perfection she would attain. She had a whole street to practice.

2nd

Hope in War times

She was perched by the balcony when the siren had sounded. The blaring noise reverberated in heart as she scampered over to the storeroom. In the frenzy of chaos and terror, the family was canned within the small cube of a bomb shelter. They had gotten used to this by now, the air raid drills, and the reign of blood, the rain of fire.

Sally peeked through the cracks of the ceiling of the shelter that peeked just above the surface of the backyard, before her mother grabbed her to huddle with her brother. The house had crumpled to almost ruins in the first few raids in the year, with only the living room to spare, where they had lodged ever since.

“Sally! Stay down!”, the voiced yelled over the blaring of the siren. Sally only turned to watch her mother, her face, as if it were tied in a dead knot of furrowing brows and worried contours. She had felt scared in the moment, but the presence of her mother calmed her, being only 6 years old, and unable to understand the magnitude of war.

Everything they had had all been reduced to rations and greyness, with only hope to spare.

She nestled herself against her mother and brother. The 3 of a family crumpled together like a huge mass, under the wing of the mother, bracing themselves for the pandemonium, the screaming and bloodied streets, that never came.

After moments of speeding heartbeats and white fear, the crumple unfolded and lay out in shock. Sally stood upon the boxes of hidden provisions as she looked through the cracks once more, but with a different scene. What seemed like white butterflies hovered over the grass in heaps. The siren gradually died down and for a few moments more, the family lay in the shelter.

“I’ll go first, you and Tommy stay inside.”

“B-but, mummy! Don’t leave us!—“the little fair boy whimpered pitifully. The thought of her mother dying scared her too. What would she do without her; without anything left.

As her mother heaved open the hatch, a few slips of paper sifted in like arrows, with the words in boldness printed on it:

“INSUREMENT OF SURRENDER”

More words trailed after, which Sally did not bother to read. She crept upward.

“Sally, Tommy..! It’s over!” they heard her mother from beneath the earth.

Sally and Tommy scrambled up the shelter and what met them was a great sight. Squares of papers fluttered down from the sky like white doves, trailing from a plane in the sky. It had not been an air raid, but a mark of surrender. Yelling and cheering began to ignite from the various parts of the town district as Sally’s mother swept Tommy and herself into a tight embrace.

“Its over.”

The reality of the situation soon settled in. With almost everything they had ceased by the government, including Sally’s father who had fallen in for the war. The promise of his returned had been deeply embedded into her head, and she took it as if it were a sort of business deal, rather than a promise; that he had to come back, that his return was certain.

“Have hope, Mrs Loh… Surely your husband will return..!” Mrs Loh smiled incredulously at her neighbour’s empty words. Sally and Tommy were fidgeting at the back of the hall. The long line for food rations had always been the common space for all to interact, and it was the chatter within the line that seemed to keep everyone going. One nation they stood together against injustice, one nation they will fall, into the hands of the communists of the North.

Despite the war being near to over, new worries settled in. Two weeks since the surrender and no new from the army. It was as if dread were a cloud, over her wherever she went, whatever situation she was put it. She longed for her husband, and worried. All the worries, tangled together into a dark mass, together with the welfare of her children, together with tomorrow; the future. She quickened her steps as the line proceeded.

More news trickled in slowly and painfully, of vans with the remaining survivors of the war were making their rounds and returning soldiers to their homes. Mrs Loh often found herself idling at the porch, her subconscious drawing her to the scene of the road up front of her house. Her thoughts were bitter and she’d often find herself melting down with tears. Everything had been stripped from her when it had first begun, the year when Tommy was born. She cursed the system, cursed her life and cursed everything.

The sun had begun to dip slowly down the horizon and sunlight dappled the ruins of the kitchen. Sally wandered over to the gate of her house. She missed her dad. The image of him had slowly began to fade as her phase of tearful nights slowly subsided into a sort of chronic heartache.

The revving of an engine could be heard from a distance. Sally craned her head through the gate, and cast her gaze over to the source of the sound. From the distance, a blotch of green was heading towards the district and as it grew in size, it soon became clear to her; a hooded van. The van! Before she could call for her mother, she had already ran outside, her desperate eyes sifting through the van’s passengers. Tommy heard the commotion and had too, craned his head out the gate. The family was joined by neighbours of hopes alike. Screaming and yelling, churlish voices could be heard. Together, all three pairs of eyes rested on one familiar face as the van halted infront of the house. It all seemed surreal to Mrs Loh, to Sally, and to Tommy too. The family was wrapped tightly together in the heat of tears and joy. Truly, when there is nothing left, hope is all they had.

3rd: Lam Shi Jie, Paul, Fairfield Methodist School (Secondary)

Survival

You know the story about the Titanic? I was on it. Many people died from that incident, not me though, I was pushed off by some idiot halfway throughout its maiden voyage. This is the story of how I survived.
Day 0: I was pushed off on the 3rd of April while I was standing on the bow of the ship; it was travelling from Belfast to Southampton. On the second night of its departure, I had decided to head on the deck of the ship for some fresh air. I was enjoying the sea breeze until I felt a sudden shove from my left. I was too shocked to cry out as I fell into the ocean below me. I am not sure about the sequence of events that followed; the ship was a leviathan that tossed me far away and disappeared off into the horizon. I screamed for help at the top of my lungs but to no avail. I just resigned myself to my fate.
Day 1: I washed up this morning onto an unknown island with no trace of civilization. I began to set my priorities; I needed food, water, and shelter. After several hours, I had discovered a small pool of water, but recalling what I little survival knowledge I had, I knew I could not drink any of it, the water was all stagnant and still, and probably teeming with numerous bacteria and parasites. I soon stumbled upon a small stream of water, and that is where I set up camp in a tree for today.
Day 2: It’s has been 2 days since I had a proper meal, I need to find food soon, there are a few rodents around the island, but they will not sustain me, I need to find something else. There are some flounders near the bay; maybe I can try spear fishing. I had hardly any sleep last night; I always had this feeling that something was watching me throughout the night, stalking me like I am its prey. It was foolish of me to not start a fire; I did not expect the night to be so cold. I need to get one going before sunset.
Day 3: Last night was not so bad, but right now, I really need to get something to eat. I had fashioned a makeshift spear to catch the flounders in the shallower waters, this time, luck was on my side, and I had managed to catch 2. That should be able to last me for a day.
Day 4: I am lonely, according to some of the stories that I have heard, people have been stranded for over a month, sometimes rescue never comes, and they are never heard from again. The thought of that is just terrifying, the problem is that this fear is now a reality; I may never see my family or my friends again. I need help.
Day 5: I am out of food again, ever since I caught the 2 flounders the day before yesterday, I have not had anything else. My water supply is not running out anytime soon. I have assembled some stones to form a large sign on the coast showing “SOS”, hopefully, a plane flying over the island may spot it, as well as the fumes coming from my fire. Not that planes were very advanced during my time, but I can only pray that a miracle may happen.
Day 6: I don’t know what I am doing anymore, I am unable to find any food, it seems that even Mother Nature has something against me ever since I killed the 2 flounders. The sea seems to be void of fish now, there is not a single fruit that grows on any of the trees, and even the rodents are gone. I doubt that there is any more chance for me to survive on this God-forsaken island. I give up; I am just too tired and weak to carry on anymore. I can hear a plane flying over me, I don’t really care anyway, they probably did not even see my fire.
Day 7: A small boat had landed on the island this morning and picked me up this morning. Apparently, the plane had sent a signal to a nearby navy vessel, and they sent a boat to pick me up. Thank God for that. I had nearly given up on my chances of survival.
When the situation seems dire, there is always hope. When everything is messed up in the worst condition possible, hope will find a way.