Decay

 

I would like to share my school life with you, but I had no idea where to start.

Should I talk about those crimson rust blotches and dried bird droppings on pillars along the corridor, or the odour of fungi which had contaminated the school compound?

How about those towering trees? Let’s talk about how their ghostly, twisted branches stretched upon the buildings and engulfed the lingering warmth in the air.

If I had to decide, the first place would go to a white, unsightly statue in front of our science lab. It was a crude plaster sculpture of three men closely attached to one another, back to back, arm in arm�"a supposed symbol of unity. There were tiny dents and fissure on one of the effigies whose face was mossed.

Every time I inched closer to it, a reek of decay crept into my nasal cavity.

 

***

My school life began with a brief introduction in front of my new classmates.

I looked ridiculous in my oversized apron-like uniform, short choppy bangs and crooked spectacles. The introductory session was a mere humiliation to my awkward everything.

My classmates befriended me nevertheless, since I was the only person in our class who could solve a quadratic equation. It sounded rather pathetic, for me and for them. But on the good side, they would be more than happy to share some school’s folktales with me.

“You know that cleaner auntie? She always talks to herself in Cantonese,” Classmate A told me, when we all gathered at field waiting for our P.E. teacher.

A high-pitched voice cut in before I question her. “Good morning girls, are you ready for the warm-up?” Puan Nishaa danced all the way to the field, waving her arms.

“Yes…” we responded with a deep growl.

As if the whole class had been planning to ‘jeopardise’ the lesson, suddenly, our class monitor pointed at the roof of administration building and screamed. “Oh look, a big black bird carries dead body!”

Apparently, there was a crow feeding on animal’s remains on the roof. A dead swallow lay stiff under those menacing claws. The carcass jerked as the crow was poking the remains with its beak and tearing it apart.

The cool morning air wasn’t so refreshing for some reason.

Someone mimicked the crow’s caw. We booed at her and cheered at the same time.

Puan Nishaa was not amused. “Girls, that enough! Let’s do the warm-up. Follow my lead…” she turned her back at us.

“Why is she talking to herself?” I meant the old janitor, so-called cleaner auntie.

“Some seniors said she talks to her daughter’s ghost,” replied A. “That girl jumped down from Block E because she failed her PMR.”

Block E, I shivered. That was the highest and shadiest building in our school.

“Did you tell her about the three-faced man?” B interrupted.

“I can see you!” We heard Puan Nishaa yelling in the distance, and immediately got into position.

“Three faces, the white, statue?” I asked while doing jumping jacks.

“Yes, years ago Pandu Puteri organised a camping at school. Bad decision,” B said in a spooky tone. “One night, two campers sneaked out from their tent….”

“And they saw the three-faced man smiling at them!” A hissed.

I lost my balance and knocked on some people behind me. “Ouch!”

The small commotion caught Puan Nishaa’s attention. “Err-hem, Woo Ying?”

My classmates laughed themselves to death.

My sweating cheeks heated up like a soup dumpling.

“Woo Ying means ‘fly’ in Cantonese,” I protested.

People tended to mispronounce my name.

Puan Nishaa ignored me. “Okay girls, that’s the end of our warm-up session. You can do whatever you like as long as you don’t… vandalise school property.”

We resumed our discussion regarding the statue.

“What did those two campers do?” I asked.

“They were dating, so…?” classmate A shrugged. “Doing ‘couple-ly’ stuff?”

B screeched in laughter.

My forehead creased. “No, I mean, what happened to them?”

“They lived to tell, of course!” said B. “Beware! The three-faced man can move!”

If the statue could move freely, it would have scraped that disgusting moss off its face.

***

People said that Form 2 was a honey-year, since Form 1 freshmen were struggling to adapt to new syllabus; Form 3 students had PMR to worry about; whilst Form 4 and Form 5 students were mentally brutalised by over-standardised language subjects, add-math and science.

This theory sounded ridiculous to me, because my target, or my parents’ target to be precise, was to enrol in the so-called elite classes, which meant I had to be extremely attentive and diligent.

During science lesson, I lent my report to my group members who were busy reading magazines throughout the food chemistry experiment. As they fought each other over my workbook, my gaze darted around the lab and eventually landed on the statue outside the window.

The first thing I spotted was a huge, fleshy mushroom. Its volva was glued to fissured shoulder of the mossed-faced effigy.

Was it feeding on the statue instead of dying trees?

Under the dim evening sunlight, I could see the face twisted, or grimaced under its green, slimy mask. I smelled it once again, the stench of rotting log. It brushed against my nasal septum. A surge of nausea sizzled against my stomach wall.

I abruptly stood up and sprinted out of the lab before my teacher notices me.

The nearest and cleanest toilet was, unfortunately, located at Block E. As I tiptoed into the toilet, I could feel the presence of grim murk and coldness. They lurked in this airless space, attempting to devour my entire existence.

My irrational fear of darkness and awakening slumbering ghosts suggested me to leave. Torn between my perturbation and distressed calls from my bloating bladder, I froze at where I stood, until an unnerving sight set in and traumatised me for the rest of my mortal life.

 

At the corner of the dingy toilet, the old janitor was on her knees. She buried her face into a pail full of tap water. Her shoulders twitched vigorously. The pail wobbled; water was splashed onto glossy, slippery floor.

The wall-shaking shriek that I expected was trapped in my voice box.

The old lady raised her head and turned to face me. Water dripped down from her aberrant cheekbone and ashen hair. If I stood close enough, I might be able to see my distorted reflection in her protruding, lunatic eyes.

“Wei Ying…” she began to whimper in Cantonese. “Why were you so foolish?” her howl resembled a pack of sad wolves. “How could you leave me like that?”

Wei Ying?

Each time she spat out that name, my eardrum threatened to shatter. I had almost misheard it for the silly name people miscalled me.

“We-oo Ying!”

Hysteria took over me before I lost control of my feet.

***

When I was back to the lab, everyone had already completed the Benedict’s test�" everybody except for my group members.

I supressed a lungful of volcanic anger, grovelled to other classmates for their lab reports. My group members seemed to sense the negative energy emitted from my resentful, dejected soul, so they decided to keep a distance from me.

A and B were daring enough to approach me nonetheless.

“Hi, I know you are busy. But there is something super crazy you need to hear right now!” A said.

“Is it about the stupid statue?” I mumbled, and sneaked a peak at that hideous monster outside the lab. Its base were nestled on the lawn, fixed and secured.

“Bingo!” B clapped her hands. “Remember those two seniors I told you about? Actually, they are my sister’s friend. Yesterday, they visited her and talked about the three-faced man.

“Eight years ago, three Pandu Puteri members were assigned to sculpt a statue. And… those seniors just happened to be two of them.

“The third member was their classmate. She was too devoted to her studies and did not finish her part in time… as you see, one of the faces is faceless… and mossed.”

As we all glanced at the statue, I was quite surprised that I didn’t wrinkle my nose at that stench. To my trepidation, I realised that I was accustomed to it. As if it had become a part of me.

“The other two pulled a prank by telling her about the curse of three-faced man. They said she will die if she didn’t chisel a handsome face for the faceless one,” B paused and looked at her watch.

“Teacher says no one can go home unless everybody passes up their work!” yelled the poor class monitor who was buried underneath a pile of workbooks.

“No one took their joke seriously,” B continued. “Until the girl killed herself after she got her PMR result. Everyone was shocked when she failed her BM.”

We fell into stony silence, as if we were mourning for the deceased.

“So… what do you guys think?” asked B. Her eyes were gleaming with terror and nosiness. “What killed her?”

A changed the subject right away. “Hmm…. What’s her name again? Wei or Woo Yi…”

When the school bell rang, I immediately grabbed my bag and left the lab with other classmates, ignoring the flustered class monitor and enraged teacher.

I strode passed the statue, and registered a long, perfect crescent surfaced on the mossed face.

The malodour of fungus was suffocating.

“I will rot with neither of you!” I hissed and fled without looking back.

Not even once.