True/False Stories
Story 1
This happened when I was at the tender age of twelve. I was an energetic primary school student preparing for the Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE). I was always actively involved in sports and would stay back in school every other day to play basketball or table tennis. Usually, it would be for the latter.
Being the playful young boy that I was, I would sometimes play pranks on some of my classmates and friends. Sitting beside me in class was this girl, who was my primary target for pranks.
A particular prank I remembered was shaking her can of cola secretly before she drank it. Recalling her reactions when she was sprayed in the face by the gassy cola still brings laughs to me. However, I was not a guilt-free prankster. I did feel remorseful after it but could not bring myself to apologise to her.
An even more heinous deed I committed was when I got into a heated argument with the same girl. It got to the point when I shouted at her, “Do you believe I will smack your face like how I smack a table tennis ball?” She challenged my dare and continued provoking me relentlessly. I then took an exercise book and delivered a powerful table-tennis smack right to her face faster than we could both say “Ah”. It all happened so fast before I even had time to think. Till this day, it remains one of the deeds I feel most remorseful about.
Story 2
I was an apprentice under one of Singapore’s well-known photographers. Let’s just call him Mr X. He has worked on numerous government projects before and was a well-reputed and respected man in a photography forum. There was once when the 2 of us went out for a photography outing with a few mutual friends. We always held review and critique sessions after shooting, and these sometimes extend to our own private forum, where we can post the photographs we have taken.
Well, as a lot of my friends know, I am no longer an apprentice under this photographer. What they do not know is, during that fateful outing’s critique and review session, a lot of our private forum’s members actually commented that a handful of my shots were way better than my then-mentor’s.
With an ego as big as the entire FMS population, Mr X could not, in a gazillion years, stomach those comments. He became Thor, and rained chaos upon my photographs, claiming that they were weak and finding all the small flaws that he could. He would invent them if he could not unearth any.
The last straw came when a mutual friend actually commented that one of the portraitures I shot of a stray cat was executed better than most of Mr X’s. Now, Mr X has always been hailed as one of the best, if not the finest, cat photographers of Singapore. I found myself without a mentor the very next minute. The rest, as they say, is history.
So, which story is true? I will leave it to you. Happy deciphering!
snake9 said
erm….first one is not true…you are old…you have probably forgotton a lot about being 12 hahahaha
Caleb said
I dunno what happened between you and your photog mentor, but I’ll believe story 2.
gdine said
story two is trueeeeee?
dengli said
The seoncd story is true…
bobdagreat said
i’d really like to believe story 1…haha…but i’d go with story 2…
i suspect story 1 is half true whereby…you really did shake her can of coke…but to smack her her face with an exercise book?…i believe that it was something you REALLY wanted to do at that time….but did not actaully do it in the end…although u’d prob like to fantasize that u did…haha
misterryan said
I suspect this situation is more complex than that. I think both these stories are not true. The second one is skewed so much in favour of the “I am an amazing human being” school of story writing, it feels way more like a memory than an experience.
There’s also a part of me (a guilty part) that really wants to watch that moment in the first one with the exercise book. I can just imagine Dengli shaking her head at me with disappointment as she reads this.
Sin said
The first one is true i think. because I cannot believe any story with a Mr.X in it. Even if it is an alias.
letmetellyouastory said
1st one!!!
derelictz said
well, to clear the air, I named him Mr. X as I did not want to give away his identity. Perhaps somebody who knows him may stumble in here. No identities provided = no trouble.
Nick aka derelictz said
anyway, if anybody still visits this link and still doesn’t know which story is true, well, story 1 is true. lol. yeah, i feel guilty bout it, but well, i hope u guys will not condemn me for an act i committed 11 yrs ago. =\