Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
I LOOKED out of the window, a bit blurry eyed, the checkered pattern of the car seat, lightly imprinted on my right cheek. The clouds, like fluffed pillows, lay thick and languid, almost pressing against the glass. Heaven's quite white, I thought, sleepily.
It took me a while to realise we were driving up the side of a hill, in the thickest of mists.
Looking through the rain-splattered window - the ice-cold glass stinging my pressed face - I saw a hint of green in the vicinity, the sprawling acres of tea estates rolled around the sides of the mountain in a hugging embrace.
'This vacation seems to be quite an experience', I thought, 'A little more than a week and it's back to the desk'.
It's miraculous how summer holidays seem plentiful and listless at the good end of June, only to find them short and vastly inadequate at the wrong end, in September.
'Wow, senior year' - the thought clings on like a frightful gibbon.
After nearly 16 years, school still seems ubiquitous. We see no other life than one centered around that meticulously tiled building with its strident bell, wooden chairs and shamefully graffiti-ed desks.
And, now, going into school, knowing it's the last time we'll have a 'first day back', a scramble for the least tattered textbooks, overdue school library books, untimely fire drills, a hilarious note-passing session, a hangman marathon at the back of our maths books, a torturous 'bleep' test, a long-winding assembly preaching for a better tomorrow, a prank day, a laugh in the common room, a prom/summer ball and a break to just hang out together, I don't really want school to ever end.
I think they call it Senioritis, wanting nothing to change, being terrified of the future.
So, sitting silently in that jolting car, I couldn't help but relate the journey to my future. The mist made it impossible to see more than a few meters away as we precariously bumped along the rocky, unbeaten track.
At any moment we could have skidded off the hill, off the unrailed, sharp turns, plummeting into oblivion, into the vast murky white. At any moment the engine could have given out and we could have been racing downward at break-neck speed. At every turn, came anticipation and exhilaration. In case the intended metaphor here is as impervious as Sri Lankan mist, I am quite simply anxious about my future, looking into its unclear, unpredictable depths; a wrong turn could wreck everything.
So here we are, Year 13, tethering in the billowing wind, going up a hill enveloped in ominous clouds, spiraling, yearning for the riches that await those who make it all the way to the very top.
Our future beckons us.
My thoughts were jostled by the car's last shudder, as it spluttered to a grinding stop. A magnificent creamy white 19th Century colonial house lay before us, perched on the apex of the green encrusted hill. I hurried in, to the customary hospitable smile and 'Ayubowan'. Sinking into a cushioned wooden chair, before a crackling fire, I sipped at my cup of fresh, homegrown Orange Pekoe tea.
Success tasted invigorating.
