The day started as any normal day with a loud agitated scream from my mother to wake me up. As was my normal routine, I ignored her until she got irritated and smacked me off my bed literally. Yep! Then the floor give me a smack too. As usual, I am late for school and while I am dressing, with anger pouring out of me, my older brother mocked me that I would be late for school. You know that feeling when you can see into the future? What you would do to someone; but you don’t. I call it a ‘fake flash forward’.

Anyway, I made my journey to my mother’s car, still a bit angry from the tag team from my mother and the floor and it was a silent journey to school as expected. But then, an unusual thing happened. My mother told me a story about the tortoise that beat the rabbit in a race. She was implying that I should improve on my schoolwork.

When I think of my schoolwork, I am not a genius but my teachers say I am. I get low marks because I am lazy. If you think of it, I am like Spider-man – clever but lazy. Anyway, getting back to it, that story made me more furious, and in no time, we arrived at school. I got out of the car without a word, although my mother said goodbye.

I entered the school as on any usual day and in no time, it was the final period of the day. As always, we got a language. I would normally sleep in this period, but this time the teacher took a stand because of the people who walk all over her. I ignored the speech she gave and this made her angrier so she called my mother to tell her that I’m rude and disrespectful and she must have a word with me.

I was so frustrated by the teacher’s actions that I stared at her with dead eyes until the period ended. It was time to go home and as usual I walked home but as soon as I came out of the entrance of the school, there were a few guys waiting for me because they wanted to avenge their friend that I had beaten up because he stole my stationery. I tried to run over the road but in a flash, I was knocked out.

I woke up in hospital and I was curious about what happened so I asked the nurse. She said that I got hit by a truck and I was paralysed from the waist down. I was shocked and then I tried to move my legs but I couldn’t. My mother stumbled in crying and watching me with eyes filled with pity. I thought about my past; how I abused the good things I had and now I am being punished for abusing those things. All I can say to people reading my story is: Cherish what you have.