In Continuum.

Me and the Bean Stalk

I had a dream the night before yesterday's.A dream which i will blog in detail later on,but hear me out on this part of my childhood i almost nearly forgot.It's strange how a dream was able to trigger that part of my memory,like digging it out of the graves of my childhood with a shovel.Everything came flooding back to me then,in my dream as i desperately tried to tell somebody and a little boy about the story,but was rudely ignored by the both of them,chatting about non-related subjects at the back of a moving bus,down a long vast stretch of European countryside.

I remember only fuzzy images of it,but the memory that i had,the one i was trying to tell them of,remained vividly in my mind despite the tingle of anger and frustration in my mood a minute into my waking.I smiled afterwards,just thinking about the memory,despite it being one of the sadder memories of my younger self.

This is a sad story.

I'm not sure if it was due to a Primary School Science class project,did my sister embark on this little everyday routine in the balcony.I vaguely remember my mother introducing the idea to her,and she immediately fell in love with it.My mother is a avid fan of gardening,and if you cannot find her in the toilet,the kitchen,her room then she is definitely in the balcony,digging away in the dirt with a green shovel,or pouring the whole pot of plant over on a piece of old newspaper,then trimming the leaves of the plant away,saying that the next time the leaves grow it'd look a whole lot better.I never believed in her,but it's actually true.They do look better after being shaved bald and then left in the corner of my house's balcony.It is sort of like going through army with a bald head for us red-blooded humans.You emerge from the ordeal a totally different,and better person altogether.

But anyway,my mother - being a fan of both gardening and books - read up a lot on gardening.And thus,she gave my sister a couple of tips on her own mini-science project back then.

I think my sister was doing the little project to get some badge from school.You know,those extra-curriculum projects you do outside of your normal school work to gain badges to pin on your collar?Getting a full set was a prestigious thing,and i remember the both of us - since we were from the same school - working real hard for it.For the Botanic aspect of the project she decided to grow a couple of green beans and watch for their growth.And because i was working for the same badge and we shared different science teachers,it didnt matter if we used the same subjects anyway.

I remember the empty pudding cups my mother washed and gave us after our meals,and told us to go find a cotton to wet.We did so with her cosmetic cotton wool pads,and then placed them at the bottom of the pudding cup.We threw a couple of green beans to the bottom of the cup and kept watch on them.

Mother told us to place them in a place with a lot of sunlight,and we did that as well.The balcony was probably the place with the most supply of it,and so we placed them on the railing where my mother usually placed periwinkles,and then left them there in the sun,recording their growth and length,and occasionally drawing them on our drawing blocks.I remember watching them eagerly,and anticipating the day when the leaves would sprout at the top of the stalk,and then eventually into a full grown plant.Who knows,it might just provide the family with a life-time supply of green beans!

We watched and we watched,and because green beans dont grow too fast,they take a while to reach a certain height.My sister was enthusiastic about it,while i was being the typical primary school boy.My attention span was as long as say,the time you take to watch a thirty minutes broadcast of Transformers on television.Soon enough,i relied too much on to moist cotton wool,and under the hot sun it soon dried up.And there i was in the livingroom,behind the glass doors to the balcony,watching the cartoons on television with my legs crossed in front of the table,watching intensely at - not the green bean stalk - but the cartoons on TV.

There was a storm the next day,the world turned into a threatening shade of gray,and then the rain came falling down like never before.It mustve been one of the rainy seasons,and the wind blew like a fan was being turned on somewhere in the far horizon,at full power and full of mercilessness.

The weightless pudding cups came sailing off the edge of the railing to the orange tiles on the floor.My sister's green beans were already in the safe shelter of the house,while mine braved the wrath of the storm outside,against the mighty wind and the merciless rain.The contents were strewned all over the floor,the half grown green bean rolling in the wind,slowly and gradually into the dark and wet gutter.

I pushed opened the glass doors,the wind smacking against the side of my face.My tshit was soon drenched from the rain,but i didnt care too much about it.It was then,on the brim of it's death,did i finally realised just how much i have neglected my dear green beans,now all over the floor of my home's balcony,rolling away in the tumbling wind and the raging storm.I kneeled on the floor,saving whichever stalk of green i could find,but they were already dead,even before the storm started.They felt dry,and despite the puddle of water gathering in my palms from the rain,it still felt dry between my fingers,as they rolled around between the tips of them.

I failed the projected,i didnt get the badge in time.I didnt finish it on time.While my sister was happily showing off her array of badges on the shelf,every single one of them,shining brightly from the reflections of the sunlight off her glimmering white teeth.I failed though,not just the project and the chance to get the Botanist badge,but failed the green bean altogether.

It's strange,how when i was young,i used to feel depressed over the least humane of things.Dead fishes,prawns,and now green beans.I never had a great sense of responsibility,and i guess you couldve called me a spoilt kid when i was young.But like the trees my mother very well trimmed to their bare branches,i guess right now i am a different person,with my hair trimmed before and then having gone through the military.Not literally with greener leave on my head but,at least i am a different and better person than before.

If i have the chance in the future,i must just empty another cup of egg pudding,and then placing a couple of green beans over a piece of moist cotton wool.And this very time,i am going to take good care of it,like the person i so very much care for right now.If i cant even take care of a couple of green bean stalks in a pudding cup,how is it even possible that i am capable of taking care of a beautiful girl?Of course,i am not even trying to draw an analogy between the two,but one thing is sure:That the next time a storm rages in her life,or the wrath of the wind reaches its peak,i am going to be there before her pudding cup flies away,and bring her in from the storm into the warmth of my place.

RIP,my dearest green bean.