Reminiscent

"Poor boy. Who punched up your face?"

It was during Monday assembly, when something hit me, hard. Something other than the usual pangs of gastric pains I suffer, week after week, as I try my best to stand upright and keep an eye out for misbehaving students. The librarians were doing their promotion thing, you know, promoting new books that students wouldn't actually be able to take out of the library anyway. They were promoting encyclopedias.

I used to read encyclopedias. Yeah, when I was younger. Page by page, like I would a story book, albeit a v. v. thick one. I used to love them. And then on that Monday, I realised that I might still actually do.

And now I wish I had an encyclopedia to read. Probably one on geography or history, or global cultures, or just general knowledge. Even on the evolution of science, but nothing too deep, due to my distaste for that particular branch of knowledge. But now I see the main reason why I stopped - encyclopedias that are not for children are just far too expensive for me to afford. Or my mom. She doesn't really appreciate my being a bookworm, methinks.

I don't know who I am.

I think that's the first time I've said that here. Usually I avoid talking about this kind of thing, because this is the real world, and not a storybook - we aren't beings that can be summed up using any known words.

I think, though, that I used to be smart.