The Hands that Touched Him

Bending down, he slowly placed the flowers on the tombstone. Sighing lightly as he stood up, he reflected on how swift time flies. The merciless and impatient time that stole the girl that he loved away from her.

Or should he say, the girl that first loved him.

In Loving Memory: Joann Emila, 1988 - 2009

Fought till her last death
Now sitting at the right hand of our Lord
and donning a crown of righteousness

Closing his eyes, he took his own sweet time to recall his memories of being with her. Before all the roses, all the hospital visits, all the hugs and kisses, before the sitting-together-watching-the-break-of-dawn and before the candlelight dinners.

Before all of those, there were only 2 individuals who would never imagine that their paths might even cross. Never in their wildest imaginations. And perhaps they were not to be blamed if such never crossed their minds, but basically it was all about what made him who he was back then.

He was a child of a single mother. His mother - who did not deserve to be called one - was a lady of the night. He never knew who his dad was. He never had the motherly love that every other child had. He never had that someone who would hold him by the wheel teaching him how to cycle, he never had that someone to look after him when he was down with a flu. He never had that someone who sat down by his side, on the dining table, holding his little hand with a pen, teaching him how to write his own name.

All he had, was a broken home and a broken childhood.

"Don't disturb me, go do your homework," his mom would shriek at him as she dragged another client into the room before slamming the door in front of his nose.

"What school fees? You don't even deserve to go to school you brat. The fact that I brought you into this earth is a great deed done for you."

His childhood had no laughter. His childhood had no joy or no memories of birthday cakes or Christmas presents. All that he could dig up from his childhood days were dark rooms, disgusting noises coming from his mom's room, smoke that choked the room, torn curtains that could barely cover the stained windows of the dirty room.

And he walked into high school a loner. A boy with no past, a boy with no friends, a boy with no hope or vision. He never thought home was bad simply because primary school was a total nightmare. To compare it on a scale, his school life would have ditched the scale if his life at home was at the other balance. School bullies tormented him and picked on him.

"Hey you fatherless brat!" Smirks.

"BASTARD!! That's what we call people with no fathers!" Jeers.

"Here comes the bastard!!" Evil laughter.

And they'd shove him to his locker and give him a good round of punching kicking and socking before they locked him in his own locker. From the little hole that allowed little rays of light to illuminate the dark locker, he could hear their laughter fade along with their footsteps. And in the darkest room of his life, he cried and sobbed, knowing that no one would ever hear his tears. No one would ever come to help him because he was a bastard.

He was locked in his own locker so many times that he knew how to pick the lock from inside. Making sure that no one was looking at him, he'd creep out of his locker, gather his stuff and walk home.

And now it was high school. What was he expecting? More punching? More kicking? More locked up in his own locker?

"Hey you!" someone yelled from behind him. He turned to see a group of people donning dark leather jackets over white T-shirts with symbols of the skull. Adorning heavy metal necklaces that qualified to be a belt, high heeled boots with a cowboys wheel behind it, they motioned him to come over.

Walking over slowly, he feared the worst. He knew what that was all about. Well he thought he knew, but he thought wrongly.

"You seem to have some potential sucker," one of the guys said. "Wanna go kick some ass?"

Left in a daze for a second or two, he realised that they were offering him to be a part of their gang. He smiled. Finally no one will be able to touch him or lock him up in his own locker. He didn't give a second thought, he certainly didn't hesitate.

Before long he was being a part of the triad. His triad was notorious and well known in the school for disciplinary cases. Students feared their triad. They would just go up to a student and ask for money. Tough luck if they don't hand over the cash, they'd end up as pulp and lose their cash anyway.

Until one day as he was about to pulp another boy, something caught his eyes. Something that he never thought about his whole life till then, something he never expected to see in his wildest imaginations. In front of him and the boy that he held in his hands by the collar, was a girl with short shoulder length hair and a neat pair of spectacles. Dimples on her cheeks, he could see that she was clearly smiling. Admidst the tension of the situation then, he could feel her anxiety and worries, God knows why, but she was calm as the breeze.

"Hey there, that's my brother that you're holding." and she started walking over.

What on earth was she doing? Why was she walking over? 6 months of training in triads and he was never taught to handle a girl that walks up to you claiming that his brother is in your hands and smiles at you.

Ironically, the tough man dropped the small kid and ran away. He heard the crowd that had then gather around laughing and mocking at him, but he couldn't care more.

That whole day his mind was preoccupied. The only thing in his head was that girl that stood in his way, blocking off his only exit. The girl with that sweet voice. It wasn't a threatening voice that his teachers used on him everyday, it was a warm and innocent voice that he has never heard from the slum he stayed in or from the triad he mixed with. He was so frustrated and couldn't think straight that whole day, he even refused to attend the post-motem meeting the triad had evaluating his performance.

He set out to find out who she was. He spent his whole day in the cafeteria to look out for anyone who had that 'shape' from the dark. He went all over the whole school, from the library right to the music room to the chapel, just to find that girl.

And he found her.

Her name was Joann. She was one year younger than him, and from far he saw that she had a nice round face enveloped by the silky short hair on both left and right. She was fairly short compared to him, and she always had this little metal wrist band on her hand.

He decided to get closer to her. One day he saw her carrying a large stack of books, walking out of the library. With his triad instincts, he went over and knocked her by the side, causing her to lose her balance and falling to the side with the books dropping all over the place. He was about to burst into laughter and walk off when something struck him deep in his heart. A small shockwave of pain. Something he never felt before.

He already walked a few steps ahead of her. Stopping, he turned back and saw her kneeling on the floor, gathering her books. He felt so bad. Something deep inside told him that it wasn't right, and he shouldn't have done that to a girl who did him no harm or wrong.

He walked over to the girl. "Hey!" She looked up. Smile again.

"You.. uh.. you.." he was at a lost of words. He didn't know how to speak to a girl. All this while in triad he spoke to all his comrades in vulgar. Now he was standing in front of a sweet nice girl, kneeling on the floor while picking up her books that he knocked down, and he had no idea what to say.

His face was burning hot. He didn't know what it was meant to be. All he knew was that the next thing he did, he knelt down and picked up the books for her. Handing the books over to her, he dared not look at her in the face.

"Thank you, Mike." she said with a sweet smile.

Now he looked up and stared right into her eyes. How did she know my name? No one in school knows my name.

"How did you know my name?" he mustered all his courage and blurted out.

"I knew you. I remember you were the boy that tried to pulp my brother, right?"

Oh no, he thought. This was so so so so bad. And he ran. Again.

A triad member running away from a girl? Did that make any sense at all? It sure didn't, but that was the way things went. He ran away from Joann.

After running and running for something like eternity, he sat down by the side of the road to catch his breath. Heaving and puffing, he told himself to calm down and stay calm. I have to do something, I cannot continue running away from her.

The next day he went on a hunt mission and found her in the cafeteria. She saw him sure enough and waved to him.

"Hi Mike! Care for a drink?"

Shocked. Is she inviting me for a drink? Who in their right minds would invite a notorious triad member over for a drink? That sounded insane.. but it was always worth a try.

He pretended to stay cool and calm as he took his seat. She graciously poured a cup of tea from the pot already on her table and mixed some sugar and creamer for him. "What brings you here?"

He cleared his throat. "Uh.. uh.. well.." and he gasped for a breath. He thought he nearly choked on himself. Fact was, he was so nervous that he had nothing prepared in his mind but pure blank and blank and nothing but blank. She was laughing this time. "I thought you'd prepare a speech over here. Next time you can write out your script and I'd help you mark it."

He laughed out loud, but he immediately cut it short. Now when was the last time I laughed? He never realised that after joining the triads he was slowly becoming a cold blooded creature, and finally someone was restoring some sanity in him.

"Joann," he finally mustered enough guts from deep within. "I, uh, well, apologise for nearly pulping your brother. I regretted my actions.." he took in a deep breath.

".. and I'm quitting the triads." For you.

In the next 6 years of high school, teachers, lecturers and students would witness the most amazing transformation of a notorious potential triad leader into the most outstanding student in high school. How he'd excel as a boxing ring leader in the American tournaments, how he'd lead his teams against arch-rivals into victory one after another in rugby, how he'd ace SAT test with record breaking achievements, and how he'd be the most charming guy in school compared to the good-for-nothing brat he was back then.

And the secret was not in Joann, it was in her hands.

He never told anyone about a little story that made him choose to quit the triads. As he was running away, he realised that he could run no more. He realised that the further he tried to run, the further he drifted away from reality. He was now living in a world of illusions and fear, a world of lies and false hopes.

He got up and wanted to continue running again, when someone called him from behind.

"Mike!" a sharp yet warm voice.

"Mike!"

He turned back as he was about to take foot. Joann.

It was raining then. Through the raindrops that fell on both faces, he saw that she was crying. Her eyes were red swollen and swelled up. She was shaking in the rain and she was shivering. But she stood right there, in the middle of the road on the rainy day, and called out to him.

"Don't run Mike. You think no one knows what you're going through? You think you're alone?"

"I have no father. What do you know?"

"Neither do I. But I'm not running, neither is my brother. So why should you?" She stepped closer to him. "Mike, please don't run anymore." She held out her hands and clasped his face. The warmth of her hands shadowed the coldness of the wind and rain, and in that split second he looked straight into the eyes of a girl for the very first time in his life.

He saw pain in her eyes. He saw betrayal. He saw her loneliness. He saw that she had no home except for a shelter home. He knew nuts about psychic power, but as he revealed it to her much later, what he saw through her eyes were all true.

He never thought that anyone would touch him. All he had were the tight slaps from his mother. The times when those cold hard hands that landed on his cheeks were never pleasant experiences. It made him thought that hands were meant to inflict pain and nothing less. He thought that the hands were made to destroy, to punch, to hit, to wage war, to harm.

But the turning point in his life came when someone used her hands to touch him. More than just his face, but his heart.

And that changed his life.

He realised, through their romance, that she will not be living long. She had a disease known as G6PD, a syndrome whereby the blood lacks a certain enzyme that is capable of breaking down highly oxydising agents found in certain food. Due to that fact, her blood cells are breaking down constantly and are not able to be replenished soon enough.

"Doesn't matter whether you can live with or without me," she once said. "What matters most is how I lived my life with you when I'm still around."

The night she breathed her last breath, he was beside her in the hospital. Through the mask, he saw her smiling again. "Jo," he asked. "Is there anything you would like to tell me?"

"That day when I touched you, I knew it was a dream come true."

"Many nights before then, I had been praying for you. I was in the same primary school as you and I saw how you were bullied by the gangsters. I saw how you grew to hate and eventually became a part of them, and my heart was scarred to see you fall and struggle on your own. I never wanted you to cry in the heart and act tough outside.

"And that day when I touched you, I felt the cold shell melting away, I felt your heart opening up, I saw your light shining from a distance in your cold dark tunnel. And I knew, that that was the beginning of your transformation to who you are now."

Driving back to high school in time for his graduation ceremony, the thoughts that invaded his mind moments ago back at her tombstone was still lingering around. Taking the mike later the evening, he addressed a crowd of 600 students as valedictorian of the year.

"What made me who I truly am, was not a girl - as most of you often perceived. It was the act of that girl that changed me."

Indeed, it took no romance, no flowers, no love letters to make him realised that he was loved. It was the smallest act of kindness birth from the sincerest of hearts, that made him come back to his senses and discover the truth behind the lies of this world:

No past is too damaging to a person's future, no heart is too cold to melt, no soul is too stiff to be bent, if and only if someone, would choose to be that little angel to walk into his life that one fine day, stretch forth her arms, and just touch him.