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It was 2004, or 2005. I remember staying extra hours after school, still in my oh-so-spiffy uniform: a short-sleeved, white-collared cotton shirt complemented by a crimson pleated skirt that fell just below my knees.
Sitting around and playing Snake on my mom’s brick-sized NOKIA, like as not, waiting for her to get done talking to her friend. They were off in a world of their own. Her friend’s daughter, Fahriza, and I naturally got along as a result of these catch-ups.
Not an instanteous ‘click’ at first sight, more like a fellowship that built over time. Also helped that she went to a neighboring school to mine. My fondest memory of her was when she locked me inside our moms’ friend’s bathroom, so I poured a pail of water on her through the above-door air vent.
(Life tip: Don’t get mad, get even.)
Sitting around and playing Snake on my mom’s brick-sized NOKIA, like as not, waiting for her to get done talking to her friend. They were off in a world of their own. Her friend’s daughter, Fahriza, and I naturally got along as a result of these catch-ups.
Not an instanteous ‘click’ at first sight, more like a fellowship that built over time. Also helped that she went to a neighboring school to mine. My fondest memory of her was when she locked me inside our moms’ friend’s bathroom, so I poured a pail of water on her through the above-door air vent.
(Life tip: Don’t get mad, get even.)
Bored, tired and sleepy, we kept on nudging our gossipy mothers to simply wrap it up and go home. My mom, one of the most quick-witted women I have seen in my life, had the upper hand in the situation as she always does and told us she was making soup for dinner.
And what about that? She asked me and Fahriza for a favor, making us go two blocks away to a produce shop and get her scallions for the soup that she ~apparently~ forgot to buy earlier. Two birds killed with one stone, I never admire a woman’s mind more than I do my own mother’s.
Being dumb and docile obedient children that we were, we fell in with it and headed out straight off with cash in my grasp. The shop was normally could be reached within ten minutes by walking, a bit of a problem was, significant rainfall had fallen and deluged the shortest paths that lead to it.
There’s another route by the busy and bustling street, but that required us to walk quite a distance around the block. And idle kids like us would rather walk down quiet alleys with no potential of human activity or anything of the sort, while dipping our legs in ankle-deep floodwater. Yeah.
The last thing we needed was soaking our shoes, so we took them off along with the socks, and grabbed them in our hands before wading through the flood. It’s reaching half way up our calves in certain areas and the more the depth, the more turbid it got. (Thinking about the great lengths we took for a bunch of scallions.)
There’s another route by the busy and bustling street, but that required us to walk quite a distance around the block. And idle kids like us would rather walk down quiet alleys with no potential of human activity or anything of the sort, while dipping our legs in ankle-deep floodwater. Yeah.
The last thing we needed was soaking our shoes, so we took them off along with the socks, and grabbed them in our hands before wading through the flood. It’s reaching half way up our calves in certain areas and the more the depth, the more turbid it got. (Thinking about the great lengths we took for a bunch of scallions.)
It was dusk. The sun already dropped below the horizon, daylight almost gone. The sky was purplish with hints of sunset orange, slowly turning into deep blue.
After walking through the narrow, darkened and flooded passageways for what I swear was like an entire hour, we came out into an open field—its two sides facing the main street.
We had to turn left and walk for a minute or two to get to the shop which was on the left. As we cut across the field and turned the corner, I noticed several blue wall tents had been set up. They must belong to a group of traveling carnival, I thought.
The barren land was oft rented for traveling carnivals, mini concerts, local festivals and such. The carnies would rest in them during the day before kicking off the show when the night falls.
After walking through the narrow, darkened and flooded passageways for what I swear was like an entire hour, we came out into an open field—its two sides facing the main street.
We had to turn left and walk for a minute or two to get to the shop which was on the left. As we cut across the field and turned the corner, I noticed several blue wall tents had been set up. They must belong to a group of traveling carnival, I thought.
The barren land was oft rented for traveling carnivals, mini concerts, local festivals and such. The carnies would rest in them during the day before kicking off the show when the night falls.
Fahriza and I were too busy watching our steps in the murky water to pay the slightest attention to our surroundings—especially with the lack of proper light. There was a quite long complete silence between us, only the sound of water being churned up as we both dragged our legs through.
At one point, she prodded my arm as though trying to get my attention. That made me shift my head right away from below to her eyes, puzzled. She looked terrified and upset, which kind of baffled me. (I genuinely thought a random object that got swept away by the flood touched her legs and she mistook it for a snake.)
Subsequently, her eyes darted to the side as if she tried to alarm me about something horribly odd going before us. I turned away too, figuring out what had humpered her.
At one point, she prodded my arm as though trying to get my attention. That made me shift my head right away from below to her eyes, puzzled. She looked terrified and upset, which kind of baffled me. (I genuinely thought a random object that got swept away by the flood touched her legs and she mistook it for a snake.)
Subsequently, her eyes darted to the side as if she tried to alarm me about something horribly odd going before us. I turned away too, figuring out what had humpered her.
Far on our right side, about 65 feet away, spotted was a dude in his mid 20’s. I think, 25 or 26. He’s got a tan and short hair, just normal-looking guy. But something was off. He was crouching, peeking out through the gap between edge of the tent’s wall and the ground.
His position is difficult to describe verbally, and too bad, I have zero drawing skills to show it visually. I just hope you get the mental image. When I saw him, he was staring back at us, wide-eyed, all smile. For a smile the came from a stranger, it was not casual and friendly at all. If anything, it was very creepy and unsettling.
The next thing I did was what I repent over the most. Confused of what the heck he was doing in such a strange position (on top of it being in the midst of a flood), I stared down, down until my eyes fell upon this thing that still haunts and gives me nightmares to this day. Curiosity does kill the cat.
Guess what that was?
A bloody genital, his fully-erect peen.
My poor eight-year-old eyes! Instead of running for our lives, or doing practically anything to get away from there, we stopped dead in tracks. Eyes on stalks.
It took every ounce of strength I had not to freak out and scream my head off. But sure my frightened face did look far from calm, of which the man took notice. He broke into a nasty, villainous, contented smile. And now, it makes me want to throw up.
I suppose one of the side effects of immense shock is that recollections that follow the event get blurred out or obliterated at all. (Or maybe, I’m just not doing very good in the field of memorizing stuff.) Since everything that happened afterward has slipped my mind, I don’t even remember how we managed to carry on. But if my memory isn’t that faulty, as night fell we got what we needed that were scallions, and made a quick detour back through a different, smaller pathway. (I could see us both running like hell like being chased down the jungle by wild animals.) I am glad we played many kinds of physical games during lunch breaks that compelled us to go as far away from school as possible that I knew those hidden places and getaway passages. They came in handy during times like this.
When we saw our mothers, no one said a word about the strange man. Both of us just kept our lips sealed and let it slide like nothing happened. If it happened to me as an adult, I would shrug it off as an exhibitionist weirdo searching for some attention. But in the eyes of little kids, elementary students who knew absolutely nothing about human’s private parts besides what they were being told in biography classes, it was a horrifying and traumatizing experience. Not sure if Fahriza told hers, but I didn’t tell my mum until recently as someone above the legal age. Her response was as normal as one any other adults would give. It was not big deal. She even told me that she, too, had similar childhood experience to that.
It isn’t that we live in a non women-friendly town, but the neighborhood where my schools are located was rather crappy I’d say. (Yeah, I went to both elementary and middle school in this same area. Both schools are across each other, being parted only by the ole main street.) I was told by a friend from 7th grade that our classmate was also a target of sexual harrassment that occured on her way home.
It’s another day afterschool—past 5 PM. She, my friend who told me this story, and several other kids who lived near each other were walking from school to a fourth that roughly took 15 minutes on foot to reach. There’s no public transportation taking that route, so they needed to get to the intersection then ride one home from that spot.
It’s another day afterschool—past 5 PM. She, my friend who told me this story, and several other kids who lived near each other were walking from school to a fourth that roughly took 15 minutes on foot to reach. There’s no public transportation taking that route, so they needed to get to the intersection then ride one home from that spot.
They crossed a large
bridge, still nearby. Here, while they’re lining after the other on the sidewalk, some passed by riding a
motorbike and his hand presumptuously came in contact (by this, I’m not
sure if it touched or grabbed) with her breast. She and everyone who witnessed it was beyond frantic, of course, but all were helpless as he’s gone as fast as the wind
blew. Iirc, someone else
has also recounted that she had an encounter with a weirdo and it took place at the bridge too. Basically a combination of my friend’s and my own story. A man passed by riding motorbike (why do I have a feeling this was the
same fucking weirdo), pants down, and let his lil’ billy
have a show in front of school girls.
There is fat chance these disgusting men are porm-obsessed lone wolves. Although it was even worse if they’re married men or men with partners, because I bet nobody wants their partners and children to be sexually harassed, ever. To anyone reading, please watch out for your surroundings, take care of yourselves and protect your children from some nasty creeps out there preying on them. ♡
P.S. Just got back to this post to add a thumbnail. That gif is such a blower, right? I was shooketh (how do they say that again?) when I first saw it on Tumblr. Still scares the living daylights out of me.
