I used to be a sweet boy.

With my bike and neck tie and a warm, healthy smile, I cycled over the green, green grass that surrounds my home on top of a small, proud hill that looked towards the wide, open sea. I used to have a funny chuckle. With my round eyes closed, that glowing, pink cheeks and an attitude that adults used to love, I danced and twirled in the living room while Grandma drank her tea in a blue porcelain cup, sipping every sugar, sipping every taste. I used to enjoy the trip to the grocery store that Mom did every week. With my yellow-and-green striped trousers and that silly, brown Mighty Mouse shirt I won from a funfair stand, I ran around as fast as my short legs could and tipped my fingers on everything on the shelves along the cereal aisle. I would run faster and faster at every lap and would touch more and more cereal boxes. I used to be easily amused at things that are new and bizarre. With my chubby fingers; I touched the end of a burning firework and with my plump earlobes; I put my uncle’s headphones that he listened to Indonesian metal songs with.

All of that is either gone now or in a faraway and distant land.