How the childhood dreams and wishes, ended, in tragedy…translated…
Back in the fourth grade, the school store started selling the snack noodles, twenty-five cents a pack, back then my allowances was fifty-cents a day, I’d usually saved the money inside of my homemade piggy bank, but, the noodles are savory and crisp, tastes better with each and every chew, and as I’d missed that taste, I’d, used the wires, connecting to the bobby pins, and tried getting my allowances back out of the handmade piggy bank.
Opening up that pack of childhood snack noodles, add in the pack of condiments, before placing the food in my mouth, the sounds of the crushing down of the noodles brought me great joy. During break at school, with a bag of the snack noodles at hand, not only satisfied the appetites that we had, it’s also, a trend. This snack, unlike the bagged cookies or breads, we can eat at a bag for over half and hour, crushing the pieces of the instant noodles down, it’d, made a lot of us more generous, or, we’d, poured the food onto one another’s, palms, and, shared our foods, until that final part, we’d, lifted our heads, opened our mouths, then, downed it all in.
that favorite snack of our childhood years…
If the bell rang, and we’re not finished with this snack yet, our hands would become, antsy as we sat, and finally, as the teacher turned to write on the blackboards, we’d, quickly, grabbed the bag, stuffed the food into our mouths. Sometimes, the teacher sat at her desk, not gotten up, then we’d, dropped our erasers, or pencils onto the ground, and as we squatted to pick them up, we’d, grabbed a handful of the noodles.
There are also the included scrolls with the noodles, and when all five characters had been collected, we get to send the character in, for a miniature car. What were the five characters? I no longer recall, “I” “Love” “the” “Prince” Noodles”, I think they were. My classmates, my neighbors and I were able to collect four out of five, but never could quite, get that last character. One day, as Jiao opened up the pack, she’d started screaming, because she finally got ALL five of the characters, and, as we’d, fought to see that precious last character, she’d, run to the school store to get that toy car.
A few mornings later, at the morning ceremonies, there appeared, a small bicycle on the podium, after the flag ceremonies and the national anthem sung, the principal personally gave Jiao an award, and encouraged all of us, to not give up yet, that we all, get a chance. Jiao was so proud as she got called, and all those students who’d won a place at the competitions, didn’t get as loud an applause as she had that day. Ever since, she’d ridden her bicycle to school daily, and in the fields, she looked, so very free, out on that ride.
As she received the bike, the school hosted another awards ceremony two more times, once it was to the daughter of a cloth factory. And I’d, eaten more and more packs, and yet, that one word that was amiss, never came. Once I had a tooth ache, my mother told me that the noodles were, fried, too heated, that it’d made me get dry mouth, told me not to eat it anymore.
After my tooth had done aching, one early evening, I was sharing a pack with my neighbor on the paddy fields, playing hopscotch, and, as we are into the games, we’d heard that a truck ran someone over in front of the grocery shop, we all rushed out to check. There was a white cloth covering a straw mat, and on the white cloth, was the blood, staining out, and, a bent-out-of-shape bicycle was to the side, the crushed flesh covered the handlebars. In the shock, I’d, heard the rumbling engines of the motorcycle, turned my head, I saw a twisted face coming toward me. Suddenly, the scooter engine sound halted, and, with the engine running, the howling of a woman’s voice, she’d started, fisting the ground. She was, the female owner of the textile mill.
As I got home, that bag of snack noodle, I’d, eaten only a few bites, then, barfed it all back out. And, for six months afterwards, I’d not had, any of the noodles, and, stopped collecting the characters, in hopes that I can, win that bicycle too.
And so, tragedy struck, and, it ended, your childhood innocence, and, it’s, quite tragic, how this young girl died. But, it’s the ups and downs of life, what we encountered in our separate lives, that, made the moments we remember or forget, significant…