Openers

1. The door opens with a loud creaking sound, Ahmad steps into the big, vacant hall. His footprints trails behind him on the dusty, wooden floor as he walks in further. Then he walks up the stairs to the second level…

2. Jaslyn shoves her heels under the shoe rack, drops her purple bag on the floor and reaches for the sofa, resting her heavy head and aching shoulders. Her eyelids blinks at a slow momentum of one second, closing as she blinks. Then comes a loud ringing from her moblie phone, the one she uses only for work…

3. The clock strikes five in the morning. May opens the drawer and takes out some sleeping pills, she pops two of the pills into her mouth, for the third time in the night. She picks up her moblie and reads the message on it again, for the fifteenth time, the message which she had received at ten…

4. Tim grabs the popcorn tightly close to his chest. The screen flickers for a second. The atmosphere is intense at the moment. Then he hears a loud shriek from the speakers, and sends the popcorn flying in the air…

5. Minda sits by the only light source in the room. She presses her dark black skin against the window, looking out at the big lavish city, the world of which she does not belong to…

6. A man walks past Yan and throws his day’s leftovers of buns into the city’s bin. A bun drops out by the edge. Yan picks it up and holds it tight in her shivering hands, looking at her most sumptuous dinner ever…

7. One by one, the girls jump into the muddy lake. Melanie grosses out at the moment while she tries to clean the mud splashes off her shirt…

8. The loud booming music was piercing through Gin’s ears. Gin leaves the bar counter reluctantly as her friend drags her onto the dance floor. In the dim light, she sees Ray pouring something into her friend’s glass…

9. Just as she is moving the tenth cupboard box to the side, something bulky drops out. Tamlyn picks it up, looking closely at the dark blue-ink words imprinted on the yellow, frayed pages…

10. Grabbing their schoolbags, they dash for the main school gate. Just as they reach the gate, the security guard drives away in his motorcycle, swinging the gate key round his finger…

11. She looks at the dirty money on the bed, feeling just as numb and sore for the past eight years of her youth. Consoling herself that she is doing this for a living, for her family of twelve, she wipes away the tears and leaves the room…

12. A gust of wind blow as falling leaves gather upon his feet. Kin looks at the crumpled letter in his hands, reading every sentence ever more carefully again and again as the falling raindrops wet the paper bit by bit…