An Encounter Yesterday When Power Was Cut. I Finished Writing It Down Today

Had my dinner as usual in the newly-open local restaurant beside the centre, until I started chattering with the young boy who was looking after the place while doing his homework. I always felt bad when seeing him, after serving my food, go back to focus on his study, but never took my chance to get to know him. Today I got the chance as he was giving me a cup of tea I ordered as usual. I asked where he studied from and how had he been performing and got to know that he has always been the first in class since Primary-he is in Senior one now. I inquired if he loves reading books, he murmured with an yes. So I followed up by asking for the type of books he loves to read. He told me Chemistry and Biology. I laughed, saying, 'no, I don't mean textbooks, other books, apart from school, do you like those?'

Oh, I don't have money to buy such.'

My heart stiffened. I even started regretting about the laughter I gave out upon receiving his previous answer. A sense of guilt maliciously occupied me without my acknowledgment and my conscious acceptance. 

'Well, you know, you know where I live right? We have lots of books in the centre, you have to come and I'll lend you some of them!'

He looked at me with cautiousness and relied, 'Thank you, Sir.'

I hastily finished my meal and went back to the centre, where power was cut long ago and everything, including my mood, was in darkness. The kid's image stayed firmly in my mind of emptiness, the harder I tried to erase it, the more fresh and spontaneous it became. After a short but bitter struggle, I gave up. I went into my room with the help of several clicks on my lighter, from where a very dim but penetrating frame was emerged. At one corner of my room, I found the paraffin lamp and lighted it. The room immediately became familiar again, but was shaded with a warmer, comforting colour. After leaving the lamp in the main room, I went out to find the kid. I needed him to come now rather than later to the centre, to look for the books he likes, to take borrow them away as tonight's surprise, to then let me redeem myself for my intolerable laughter.

He looked and searched the books, as one never had a chance in life of discovering new fantasies. I waited, while pretending tidying up some other books in order to give him some undisturbed freedom of enjoying himself in a strange new place. He was so nervous and in so good manner. Although I asked him not to hurry, he hurried. Although I asked him not to call me Sir, he replied each time to my offers with a very soft 'Sir' relentlessly followed at the end of his response. The room was dark, though the bouncing flame inside the lamp spread rays of delightful lights into the air. It was silent also in the room. I tried several times to break up the silence by guiding him to look through dozens of books on the shelf, but my effort was so insignificant and useless, comparing to the thick slice of silence which was soaked in his nerve and conspicuous concentration.  He took in the end several books, for which the contents various significantly. I told him to come back as soon as he finished reading the books, to exchange for some new ones. He gave me a wary, but sincere, smile as he approached the door and faded away in complete darkness with his enigmatic silence.

I still now sometimes wonder if the smile was a sign of gratefulness, of happiness or of anxiety, or of all of them at the same time. It would be forever a secret. He would, I guess, still be the same person but with a different, more relaxed, attitude, when he came next time to get some more books.