Fiat Sapientia Virtus

1.

It was already half past midnight.

The boy sleeping in the bunk bed at the corner of the room had not yet returned from the seniors’ room after being called at roughly fifteen minutes past the lights-off siren at ten o’clock. Being called for what, nobody knew; it was as mysterious and frightening as the sounds of car trunks opening and closing in the middle of the night, like the sounds of wooden coffins of Japanese soldiers from World War II who died while garrisoning this area of the district, defending it from the British eastward onslaught.

When one of the seniors came to the freshmen room with his long metallic torchlight, carefully browsing through the many sleeping faces of the boys who were already tucked in tight and warm under their blanket, there was a gradual feeling of confusion and curiosity, as if coming out of a long midday nap, woozy and blurry –-“What the hell is this? Is it the hostel wardens doing a nighttime check-up? A monthly raid for contrabands? For cigarettes, lewd magazines and pornographic laser discs?”

Under the pitch-black darkness of the night, and especially that night when the moon was away and the sky was obscured with clouds as thick and uniformly scattered as field hockey astro-turf, and with the humidity as annoying as mosquitoes from the nearby swamp –-from one sleepy face to the next, the senior kept on looking, hunting.

From one hand, a ray of pale, yellow light; while the other hand rummaged through the densely arranged bunk beds, lifting up tucked, thick blankets, tugging at their shirts and pants, and yanking them to get the attention of the freshmen; hey, wake up, are you this and this, do you have this and this, hey, wake up you, hey, this is your senior, you know my name, you know my name or not, hey, wake up; failing, and then moving on to the next one, asking the same set of vague questions over and over again.

When he finally arrived to the boy, his torchlight swung back and forth and left and right, blinding the boy’s already lethargic eyes, making sure that he had found who he came down here looking for: this boy, the one with the high forehead and beautifully shaped almond eyes, the one who did that funny dance move for the Orientation Week Night Performance.

“Get up. Somebody in the seniors’ room wants to see you.”

Unknowing and eager to get this over with as quickly as possible so that he could get back to sleep, the boy got up from his bed, buttoned down his shirt, and he followed the senior with the metallic torchlight to the seniors’ room on the third floor.

That was more than two hours ago.

Everybody in the freshmen dormitory was still wide awake, waiting for him.

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