After two years of huddling under harrowing heathers and shrouded shrines of abysmal silence in a pandemic that resembled nothing less than an instance of patronizing pandemonium; Beacon Light Academy is now once again reflecting the chants and caterwauls of eager candidates imprinting their rediscovery of long-forgotten normalcy onto the wide walkways and dim corridors of their school.
A rejuvenation of a school life they had known all their lives but which was taken away by a fragment and an instance of helplessness and unthinkable or, perhaps, some divine happenstance.
Now, the assembly area is riddled with rhyming choruses and war cries. The nudity and bareness of the beige-painted walls are hidden behind an infantry of multi-colored posters and escalating aspirations and bold letterings of excitement and hope. There is a hum in the air; an example of electric ecstasy coupled with the disdain crowding the lines between foreheads of teachers peeking out of their classroom, wondering what all the raucous in the hallway is about.
Boys have other boys riding their shoulders; a fine sheen of sweat on their faces; a mirrored image of adolescence once again apparent and alive. Girls have other girls huddled in a tight circle, sitting in vapid formation and singing songs that are at once, both annoying and welcoming to the ears.
This is not just any other student body election, in spite of all the dramedy and hyperbolism of how this may sound, this is not just another instance of annual inclusive school activity. This is simply something more cause of the circumstances preceding. In just a timeframe of a year and a half ago, we, students were plagued by the skewed possibility of no school and no exams and no friends and no normal that had cascaded into every wisp of our daily routine.
And in the absence of that reality and the disbelief of the darkness that had dawned over willful wishes and wintery wisteria, an essence of ‘young’ was faithlessly forgotten and lost.
And now, this multifaceted kaleidoscope of spectrums that feel the glint in the eye of a future head boy or resound in the cacophonies of buoyant promises from a future head girl or eclipse in the thunderous clap for a thundering speech erupting by the podium from a future leader are not just vapid and shallow memories. Instead, they are a bittersweet reflection of all that has happened, of everything that is still here, and finally, of all that is to come.