To Be A Quarterback
Zaini's quest to be amongst the most popular boys in school was quenching him desert dry with thirst. He was never shy to share his revolting thoughts and ideas about the 'Goody Two Shoes' - Guys that completed all their homeworks quicker than you can squeal out "Bloody Mary". The same guys who goes straight home after the final bell for the day, the ones who detested smokers and rebel mania. The guys that paid attention in class.
Zaini appeared attentive in class. In truth, he had just completed a couple of sketches and was sharpening his pencil to start on a new one. Smart and sharp as a needle, Zaini figured that he only needed a couple of days prior to the exams to prepare for the showdown. The formula worked so far and he intends to stick to it. HIs only concern then was, where does he fit in, the boy who refuses to commit to social norms, yet exasperated for people to call friends.
Then there are the rowdy boys. The boys who never fails to sit at their own table at the school canteen. The boys with swashbuckling hoo hah that scores the most prettiest girls in school with their uneducated quips and jokes. The boys that excel at sports and whose studies hangs in the doldrums of the bottomless pits. The boys that goes everywhere but home after school...the boys that entirely encompasses the epitomy of fun and teenage dreams. Zaini longed to breathe the same air as them...the Singapore's version for the American high School Quarterback punks!
Though strctly inhibited, it didn't take long for the popular kids to take notice of Zaini. His immaculate dressing, his apprecation for good music and high fashion, culled from his undying love for the arts and the likes, soon propelled him to be noticed by the popular guys. Soon enough, girls wanted to bed him.
Barely a month immersing into superstardom, Zaini realised that he was mingling with empty vessels. Noisy, charming, sexy yet refinedly doltish. This wasn't him he knew. Perhaps, in this world, there was only room for a few of his kind, and Zaini has yet to come across such an isolated soul. Zaini backed off slowly from the herd of punks and yet again found himself in the cushions of loneliness. It's true after all, in a safari of big cats, a magnificent leopard should just stay up his tree and avoid mingling with the brute stupidity of lions.
