#because im too squeamish to ever touch worms. ew! yuck!

[selamat-linting]

so anyway, there used to be this girl staying in one of the rooms our neighbor rented. lets call her F. one day F had to move and instead she stayed at my old house. i was too young for my mom to explain why but over the years i managed to connect the dots on my own. she got pregnant out of wedlock, her mom doesnt approve of her relationship and its not like the guy is eager on taking responsibility anyway. abortion is illegal here. and i guess somewhere along the way she had to lose her job?

anyway, F was living at my mom's place for a few weeks. i was a severe insomniac even as a kid and its nice to have someone to play with when i couldnt sleep. we watched animal documentaries and she taught me how to play board games like monopoly. during those days, she liked to talk about her siblings. especially this one girl who is a bit younger than me. F said she was a tomboy, and has always been a good, easy kid even in the womb. you see, when her mom was pregnant with her sister, they went through some marital problems that forced her mom to start working again. F was grateful her sister didnt make her mom sick so much and she was never a particularly fussy baby.

one day, F gathered the courage to see her mom again. she took me to her house. we met her little sister. at first i thought she was a boy, until i saw that she's wearing a necklace. it was the girl F liked to talk about. and she told me to play with her sister.

so we set off. this girl, lets call her C, she told me all of her favorite play spots. we walked around the fish market by the sea, we played in this park that used to be an old training ground for the military, it was amazing. i was ten or eleven years old at the time, and i thought C was the coolest girl alive. she could walk through an obstacle course without struggling, she knows how to fish, and she went on adventures almost every day. all i had going for me was that im good at browsing the internet and playing video games.

i wondered why C didnt have other kids waiting right by the door just to play with her. she was nice. definitely nicer than the ones i see at school. but then when we're in the middle of walking back, a bunch of kids saw us together and they start calling us a lesbian. C's cheery demeanor drops a bit and when i turned my head, she told me to just keep walking and ignore them. i remember feeling like i had to say something but i just didnt know what. years later, i think i know what kid me wanted to say, but by then it was too late.

anyway, we played again some more, and went back to her house. i promised next time we see each other its gonna be my turn to show her my stomping grounds (the internet). i ate dinner at their place, and F gave me a ride home. that was the last time i ever saw her.

okay no, not really. we met again. F decide to send the baby up for adoption to a relative of her ex-boyfriend. it was really sad. she couldnt stop crying. but after that, she seems to recover. at least she got herself a new job, a new place to stay, and the problem was over. on eid, she brought C at my house. yeah, C wore boy clothes on eid too. i was a bit envious of her ngl. we went on an arcade, met a kid who beg on the road outside the mall and she spent such a long time talking with them. i think C almost cried. she was a good kid. And then we played with toy guns, and C pranked a woman walking besides us by whistling at her. it was kinda mean ngl.

but thats it. there's no grand resolution. or any answer if F get to see her baby again one day. i went to middle school and liked another girl. F's visit got rarer and rarer and eventually become none as my mom moved out of our old house. with her gone, so as my continued friendship with C. we dont really have personal phone numbers as a kid and i cant find her on facebook.

when i was working at my first job, whenever i get terribly lonely, i'd get on a bus and stop around the fish market we used to hang out at. i walked by the bridge where she used to fish, near a row of stilt houses perched on top of the sea. it was almost like a pilgrimage. i hoped i'll came across C while walking around, or that i'll remember the way to get to her house. no such luck. pretty sure i'll never see her again, but i do wish her well. who knows man, maybe she'll taught me how to fish for the first time. i might know fish facts but i dont know shit about catching them.