The Scars and Their Memories

When I'm stoning while mugging, I would usually stare at my hands. Every stare always brings back memories. I do not really want to recall them but this habit of mine cannot be changed...

There are 2 scars on the opposite side of my right palm. One in the center and one on the left.

The one on the center is a small scar which is caused by a fall and I had a scratch with the rough floor. I had a fall is because I'm practising First Aid Skill during my Basic Military Training (BMT) in Tekong. We are supposed to practise carrying your assigned buddy in case they became unconscious during some emergency. The problem is that you have to like piggyback your buddy with your Big Fieldpack on as well, so the bag caused some hindrance to your movement. I lost balance when attempting to carry my buddy and we both fell as a result. My buddy fell on his butt, but I fell with my right hand touching the ground first... It is because this scar brings back the memory in Tekong, and there are more unhappy incidents occurred to me during that period, so I felt a bit of sad when I happen to look at it...

The one beside it is actually a new scar. A "new member" to my hand just this year. It is a present from my cousin who scratched me during the Chinese New Year 2010 when I disturbed her verbally...

There is a special scar on my right palm. A scar that is not on the surface of the skin, but under the skin. It is still visible though. Or perhaps, you can say is a tatoo?! This scar is actually black in colour. This happened way back when I was Secondary 3. I was fidgeting my mechanical pencil while listening to the class. Suddenly, the pencil fell. I reacted quite fast and grabbed the pencil before it could hit the ground. However, in the process of grabbing the pencil. The sharp tip of the pencil actually came in contact with my palm. The action was too fast, and the pencil pierced into my hand. Yes, the carbon lead actually broken and was found on the wound. I carefully extracted the lead myself, but the lead left some carbon stain inside the wound. You can't really take one eraser and try to erase it right? Washing also proved useless, so when the wound is healed, the carbon is still visible... (Ok, it is quite hard to explain the situation fully with words...)

The last scar on my hand was on my left elbow. This should be the oldest scar I ever had. This happened all the way back to Primary 6. I remembered clearly and it was during the June Holidays when my Form Teacher held remedial classes to prepare for PSLE. The school was quite deserted and the principal was not around at that time. So after the remedial, our class was like having the whole school to ourselves. Our teacher actually suggested playing Hide-and-Seek in the whole block!!! Ok, it would be quite tiring to play in the whole block, so we only restricted ourselves to the 3rd and 4th stories. I was the hider and I hid under a teacher's desk inside one of the classroom. When I heard a scream which was coming from the classroom beside mine, I quickly ran out of the classroom. But I got tripped onto something unknown and fell down with a great thud. As a result, my spectacles got twisted, and my forehead and my elbow was bleeding. Luckily, when the wounds healed, my forehead did not leave any scar. But because of that, my teacher stopped playing such games with us anymore...

There are two more scars on my left knee: One is a result of falling off from a bicycle when practising it. The other one is an embarrassed moment when I fell down flat onto the ground when I was alighting from the bus...

There is one more which lies inside my left nose nostril. It is a gift when I played soccer (Yes, I played soccer at that time, and this incident was one of the reasons why I stopped playing soccer...) during Primary 6 and my classmate and I tackled each other head on while snatching for the ball. In the end, nothing bad happened to him, but I got a heavy nosebleed. That nosebleed left a scar inside my nose when the doctor examined it. From then on, if I caught a heavy flu, the scar would sometimes open and will have another "heavy flow"...

Well, so much about the scars I have. And I realised that most of them bring memories that are quite bad... And will never get hidden deep inside my brain... They really represent the keys that unlock those memories... Sometimes just wish that they would vanish naturally one day.