The dreamer in me

I started reading story books when I was very young. Mom used to take us to the Anthonian book store in Brickfields every 3-4 months and I would then get my supply of Enid Blyton. I then progressed to Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Three Investigators and whatever fiction I can lay my hands on. I would read and dream, each word would lit up and form a vision in my mind. Reading is what ignite my imagination to faraway lands, to realms of fantasies and mysteries. It was a world of my own. I was part of the Secret Seven, uttering under my breath the password to get into the clubhouse... I was the genderless member of the Three Investigators, tinkering away in the junkyard, I was...I was...I was......everything, everywhere

I used to read and read without bothering with anything else. Food, homework, household chores were secondary. Mom used to get angry as I will not put a book down until I finished reading it. I remembered once, to get away from the everyone, I climbed into an empty TV box and sat there the whole morning reading. My mother panicked as she thought I had disappeared and I got a nice walloping after that.

And when I discovered the National Library, back then it was at Jalan Raja Laut, I used to spend hours after school reading and searching for new books and authors. That was my heaven on earth.

That was my love. Was.

About 4 years back I stopped reading any fiction. The trigger was when I joined the master's programme. I had to spend most of my hours reading textbook and writing notes that in the end I despise reading. That was so sad.

And now, my imagination, my thoughts feels like a well dried up. Reading is a catalyst of the mind, the soul. Without feeding the mind it cannot thrive. I have to start reading fiction again. Slowly I have to start. The years of abstinence have made my ability to read, to imagine, weak and shallow.

So now, I have to start.