M-Town is a residential district in the dead end of the West Country Railway. Surrounding the M-Town Station in the center are developments of public housing projects. In the rim of this circle of settlements is mountain range separating M-Town from the nearest urban settlement. I live in the only private housing project located in the root of the mountain. To developers it has always been a failure. The whole area is a shame on urban planning and was so left behind. Anyways, it is where I grew up in.

It is seven years later now, or six? I left M-Town to study in a boarding school, then college. Now I work at a law firm. This time I am going on a business trip. I am eight stations away. So I come home for the first time in seven years. When I got out of the Station, “Welcome home!” I said to myself.

“Same old same old” is what I feel. Things were already old and decaying when I left. The bench missing one leg was still there, still missing one leg. I went and tried to sit there. Remember you only sit on the side with both legs there. “It’s still safe though!” I thought.

So now I am home. Mom must be preparing dinner at home like always. Dad must still be working and will come home on time for dinner by the 1700 train. Routine is routine.

There is still some time before dinner. Instead of sitting at home I went out to see my long lost friends. “Do they still hang out in the Square?” I thought. Seven years’ time. People grow from sixteen to twenty three. Does same old same old apply to people too?

***

When I was a kid, we all played at the Square. Football, BMX, Hide-and-Seek. But most of the time, we fooled around, doing nothing meaningful. Trash talk until the sun takes his rest, then we knew it was time to go home. After dinner, we saw each other again. Same place same nothing to do but everything to waste youth and playfulness.

It was the time when mobile was not common even among adults. Kids gathered with routine arranged by word of mouth.

Okay! I come clean. The we above usually did not include me. So it should be they play BMX and they fooling around. I never have my own BMX. And I never can tilt the rear wheel of the a bike or ride it without hands. I was one of those kids with a full schedule every weekday. Olympic math, English enrichment tutorials, piano class and so. The only chance I could be in the Square playing with them was Saturdays. Sunday was family day that I remembered hated. So every day we left school school together. They went to the Square which is just next to school and I went home. Then on the backseat of Mom’s car driving me to class, I saw them playing. So happy they were!

Today, the second I entered the Square I knew it was different. Totally different. A barbecue court, it was turned into! “How could this happen?” I thought, and might have screamed a bit. “How could a public project’s community square be transformed to a private barbecue court?” At this moment, a man in the company’s uniform walked towards me from the reception desk, wrapping his greasy hands with a even greasier cloth. As he came closer I recognized him. Hamlet he was. The Bon Fire King.

Here I have to make a second round of coming clean. We were not as innocent and decent as I may have made you expect. By BMX I meant BMX. But most of the time we rode dangerously fast. Passerby ran like they were escaping gun fire when they heard tyres screaming. So, by Bon Fire King I meant bon fire king too! But in places inappropriate. One Autumn we played fired. We would burn out every fallen leaves we could find in the neighbourhood and arrange them into shapes like smiley faces or any geometrical shapes. Then Fire! When flame came we were thrilled as hell. Kids play water. Teenagers play fire. This was our theory.

Bon Fire King gained his name by his creative ways of misusing materials. It was one day in that Autumn after rain. It was still windy so we collected leaves behind a building. There was no sign of flame as the driest leaf was still wet. When we started to feel pointless for the game, Hamlet brought out a bottle of alcohol! He spread it around and lit the wildest fire we have ever got. Hamlet was hero! But only for 10 seconds or so. The fire was too wild to be safe. The flame rise a floor high and lit a bed sheet hanged outside of the building. Above were floors and floors of bed sheets. Bed sheets that were intended to be dried now dried really fast. By the time the fire engine arrived, it has spread to the 10th floor. We counted. This fire work burnt 7 sheets, 31 clothes of many styles, 16 underclothes, 57 socks (odd!) and trapped 2 cats. That was bad. But since there was no injury there was no charge. Frankly, this was fire work that really took breath away!

“Jimmy boy, it’s been long! Look at you!” said Hamlet, then scaned my whole shiny but dull business suit. “You really have become somebody. I knew it at the time!”

“No, I’m not.” What I could have said? “So you king are really making fire for people now? You’re good.” This was what I really mean, by the way.

Then there was a bit of awkwardness. We didn’t know what to say or do. Obviously “Let’s have some beef!” was not the right expression.

“This is…eh…nice.” I said.

“Yes, nice.”

“How’s everyone?” I asked finally.

“All gone to work in the city. Don’t come back very often now. They’ve all got their lives there.” There was a pause. “Working up from the bottom of the ladder. From under minimum wage up.”

I was embarrassed. “Who am I?” I thought to myself.

“Not like you.” Hamlet added.

As we talked, it turned out that they were all starting or trying to start their own business now. Kim the biker is now a guide for a round-island bike tour. T-Bone the graffiti master is selling hand-drawn sneakers. Pitar the music lover is working in a radio station. Tom writes videogame walk-through for a gaming magazine. He is really a videogame grownup now.

“How is Sam?” I asked finally.

“He’s doing fine. Ah, he’ll probably arrive on the next train.” Hamlet said.

“So I better run now. Are you coming?”

“Have work to do.”

“So you take care!” I said then waved my hand goodbye.

“Barbecue on the house next time!”

Do we have this expression? I thought to myself. Then I headed to the Station.

I arrived at the station way to early. So I sat carefully down on that 3-leg bench and waited. While I was waiting I imagined what it would be like meeting Sam again after all so many years. And I am telling you one by one.

Would Sam get off the train with a broken leg? So finally there was a day, Sam got too speedy on his bike. He then crashed down the hill. This might probably be true! Sam always rode the fastest, but his skills were just better than mine! So, with a broken leg, or even a blind eye, he now work at the disabled centre in the countryside, five stations away. So he might come back with his disabled friends too. Oh wait, this was way too tragic. How could Hamlet refer this as doing fine? Hamlet might well be forgetting an “after all” or “In the end!”

Or, Sam is married now. After all he made his decision to live a normal life. “You might well turn to be Christian too!” I would then say to him. Oh look! That woman with a twins might be his wife! Shocking pink bra! Sam’s favourite color! So doing well was justified. Sam knocked this woman up when both of them were drunk. So they married. Then he got a white-cellar job in the city, as a commuter 3 hours on the road a day. If Sam was still aggressive (上進?) as before, he might also be taking a BA program parttime too! Disappointed me but still a decent guy.

The train arrived. No Sam. That woman turned out to be someone else’s wife. They then went home together after performing a big homecoming big-hug ritual. Imagine in films where two characters running towards each other five metres away consuming 30 seconds. Showey couples. So Sam might not be married, but the knocked-up estimate was true on someone else. So where is Sam? Train delayed? Train crashed? Or UFO??! There is no announcement from the station, so no delay and accident. Only UFO is possible!

I waited for one more train. Still, there was no one I could recognize as Sam. So I decided to go home. When sky gets dark, go home. Like I am a kid again.

When I passed the Square, Hamlet was busy taking care of his customers. He noticed me and we waved. Then he signaled me to the right.

“Jim! Long time no see!” It was before I could see him. But loud, cheerful, low-pitch and sweet, it is Sam definitely!

“Sam!” I crossed my arms in front of my chest and looked right through his eyes. I am scared now. “You saw me at the station, didn’t you?”

You may now expect some frozen seconds and tons of flashback. It is so close and so far between us. Or, so close physically but time away we are. Whatever you may expect and know so well.
“I took a day off from work today. Ham told me you went to the Station and I’m waiting for you. Go home when it’s dark. You still do, eh?” Sam said, trying to calm me down.

“It’s instinct. I grew up in an era when watches are too much to ask for.” I said.

“Yes, watches. Then there came pages and cell phone.” Hamlet cut in. Boss can drop his customers at anytime. “Good old days!!” Then he looked up to the sky.

Sam and I exchanged some eye sight. Then we raised our eyebrows together in a comical way and said “Come off it!”

We laughed out loud. So loud that Hamlet’s customers were all looking at our side. Then there was this silence moment. This is read flashback now.

“You still remember?”

“Who doesn’t? This Karl Marx number two!”

“And the Twat thing too.”

“Yes.”

“Our Alliance of Written Trash.”

“I still keep the manifesto now!”

“This is real antique!”

“Come on. Let’s finish the rest of it together!”

So we did. Finished old silly tasks left behind. Talked until the noon was high overhead. We are grownups now. We eat out but still meet home.