The Past

A Tale of Two Papers

written on September 2015

Today my diploma certificate has finally arrived in the post. Sealed with Queen Elizabeth head, the size of the letter is nothing bigger than an A4. Inside, attached two piece of cream-coloured papers. One, the symbol of a dragon and deer; one in red and the other in blue on the centre of the paper where below says Honoured to Alifia Nuril Ikrami. It gives me chills more than when I watched Game of Throne’s Red Wedding episode, and I have never been so honoured. The second paper has more capital letter than Mrs. Weasley’s angry letter, only this is a breakdown of grades, all in black capital letter as if nothing else can emphasise the importance of it.

I stared at it for a while. My mother stares at me staring, while my grand father eyes gleam, waiting for me to hand over the paper. To me, those two papers aren’t just what it is. It symbolises years of sleepless nights, coffees, bottles of wine, unhealthy snacks and 24-hour library. Days of both emotional numbness missing home and joy in learning the curves of stranger’s tongue. It is the epilogue of eighteen years worth of a dream, and my father and family’s sweat and tears. It’s the projection of bon fire nights on the beach, the loneliest Christmas tree lights, when Marta and I got our first piercing, the love I had and lost. Representation of youth, the infinite possibilities.

Those papers holds the worst of times, the best of times.




A piece by : Fiya Muiz
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Storage Almost Full

originally published on Medium.

It begins when there’s a notification pops up on my phone, Storage Almost Full– I immediately thought of deleting some of my photos on my gallery because I know lately I have been slacking on filtering which photos deserve to stay or go, either shaky or too dark or wrong angle.

So, I opened Gallery on my main home screen, where the colourful circles after circle create shapes to some sort of flower. I scrolled up and up, until it reaches the top. The first photo is my father and brother on his graduation day, I remember I kept it for the journey back to Bournemouth in Summer 2013. And that, exactly what follows.

Strings of pictures of Bournemouth. Of me, in Bournemouth. Then, there’s this pinch at the centre of my chest. Like, maybe one of my veins intersect with, I don’t know, clashes, with something else, like there’s a thunder there or a mild car crash. Maybe it’s the muscle tighten, oxygen can’t get through. I don’t know, I’m not familiar with science, carrying this on will make me look stupid.

There’s one at Sixty Million Postcards, the hip pub in town where I had my first Bloody Mary cocktail, and my first kiss. Then there’s a picture of a pair of feet, it must’ve been Joe’s, the boy I dated many Summers ago, when I was too shy to take picture of him. I swiped left for more, there were Tya, Ratih and Omri, the home-blood relatives away from home, smiling ear to ear in front of the Winter Wonderland. I had my red reindeer hat from HnM on. We all looked incredibly, happy.

Right there, aside from an intense sense of longing, I cannot help but think, that those times were the best time of my life but how I wasn’t much aware of it when it’s happening. I know I had a great time, but I did not know yet that it’d be, or it was the greatest time of my life was happening before my eyes. In the low temperature, warmth in glass of pint, the arms of friends thousand miles away from home.

If I could go back in time, and tell the past-me that the next three years would be the greatest time I’d ever have, I probably won’t do anything differently. But I might just take more time to take a moment between the shifts of the day, at the beach, at the whiskey bar, at the bus stop, at the lower gardens, even in my bedroom to take a look around and inhale everything in, how pretty and in place everything was–

***

I had the option to shut my phone and put it somewhere far from my reach then tuck myself in under the duvet, but I get on. I scroll down deeper, deeper into the Nostalgia abyss. Forgetting I’m here to delete some of my pictures to have more space for now. 
A piece by : Fiya Muiz
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