“The Blue Light Face of Disappointment”

My mom called, “Muska, food is ready!” from downstairs.

“I don’t want to eat right now, I’m trying to study for my test!” I replied back.

I’m in eighth grade and taking a geometry class–which I’m not doing the best in. Thankfully I can maintain an A since my teacher is nice enough to give test corrections, but still, the disappointment of getting bad test scores won’t shake off me. But this time will be different because I’m really studying and memorizing these formulas to get the volumes of different shapes. As long as I remember these formulas I should do okay on the test. 

Then the next day passed and I was taking my geometry test, on a Chromebook. Most of the questions seemed easy for me, especially the ones where I had to use the formulas; of course, there were also a few hard ones–but what mattered the most was that I improved and got a decent grade. I turned in the test with confidence, just to face a wave of shock as I saw that I got a sixty percent on the test, all blue light surrounding it.

What did I do wrong?

The teacher then reviewed the test. That’s when I realized: I used the formula for half of the questions almost correctly, but I just made one mistake–I didn’t realize that I had to square the radii instead of just using the diameter. What a silly mistake that happened to dump my grade.

And disappointment washed upon me again.

Image by Alexander Jawfox

“Cats Keep Coming”

I love cats. My sisters and I have always wanted one, but my parents don’t like the idea of taking care of a furry creature that scratches furniture and takes up space. A few moments in life they have agreed to adopt some cats… but it never happened. My sisters and I would just have to live a slightly dryer life without the presence of a fluffy, cute cat. 

But a few years after–or better to say–about two to three years ago something happened. A beautiful stray cat (which looked like a tortoiseshell cat) visited my backyard on a day when my mom cooked some fish. My sister fed the cat some of the fish–and then it left after a while. What a cool moment I thought. 

After some time my family and I kind of forgot about the cat…until the next month something happened again–my mom cooked fish again and the cat came back! So my sister and I fed some of the fish to it. What a coincidence, it came back on a day we were eating fish. Does the cat live near our house? And from then on the cat came back more and more often. We called the cat many names like ‘big mommy’, ‘kitty’, ‘peesho’ (which is like a term of endearment for cats in Pashto, like saying kitty). It was a feisty cat and always scratched on our backyard door to get food. It was also a female–which means at some point–she brought kitties. 

The first batch of kittens caught the heart of my family and me. Even my father loved to play with them. My sisters and I wanted to adopt one…but still, my parents were adamant against it. We grew up with the five cats–the mom plus Gingey, Fluffy, Blackie, and Stink. Back then it seemed like our world would be with those cats, but it didn’t stop there. Two of the cats, fluffy and stink, were females–and that means more kitties. So over time up till now we’ve been getting more kitties.

 Lots of things changed. The mom cat (that we now call grandma cat) moved to the backyard of a house diagonal to us (traitor), Gingey left and blackie would only come back occasionally. And the smallest sibling– Stink–died on the street–may she rest in peace (her two kitties stayed with us for a while and then left on their own). Only Fluffy and some of her current babies remained (we gave away some of them to people). And that’s  where the cat family line ends right now. I will forever hold the memories of each and every cat that made an appearance in my life.

Why are there dogs?

Pretty much all my life I’ve been scared of dogs. Nowadays I’m not as scared but I do get caught off guard by a sudden bark or I’ll speed walk when a dog tries to ward me off. But there was a man in my neighborhood who always had dogs–and he would keep getting new ones (they would run away and one of his dogs passed away). Obviously, I didn’t like this as a child–and every time I saw my neighbor’s dog(s) out I would quickly run back inside my house. This lasted for many years. After my neighbor’s first dog passed away (may she rest in peace) he got two new puppies–huskies.

These huskies were cute–even I could admit that through my fear. But still, I was a scared child and would be the one to back away whenever my sister and friends were playing with the Huskies. They were harmless puppies that just liked to play–is what was repeated to me a lot. And I understood but it still never got me over my fear.

Then one day I visited the huskies with my friends, and both of them were out of their pens. As usual, I cautiously stood away (but sometimes I would try to get closer). But then the puppies, being puppies–started approaching me. Then it started jumping toward me (This story may be more dramatic than it was) and I immediately started running towards my house (I might have also screamed by memory isn’t that good). One of the worst parts was that I almost tripped over the puppy in front of my house. Then my dad came to the rescue and scared the puppy away (I think). And I went inside my house–while there was a blackout. 

That was a very silly moment in my life–and it makes me laugh sometimes. To think that I was so scared of a cute, harmless puppy all because I didn’t know any better. 

Image by Steffi Pereira 

Why the Furry Face

Your eyes are like cat eyes, so sharp and pretty, Lauren said to her friend Christy. Lauren loved comparing people to things, things like animals and cartoon characters. Sometimes it’s to be funny and other times it’s for no reason at all. I, Abigail–one of Lauren’s friends know her well enough to understand her intent, but others don’t, and Christy and I always remind Abigail of that. Unfortunately, Lauren doesn’t have the best memory or sense when it comes to being mindful of others–so sometimes she would blunder. Thankfully Lauren or Christy and I would be able to make the situation less awkward–but this time Lauren went a little too far…

It happened like this–the three of us just started our first year in high school. Christy and I of course warned Lauren to think before she speaks. The first four periods went by fine and lunch came quickly. My friends and I were searching for the perfect lunch spot, and we chose an isolated table under the shade of a tree. We enjoyed ourselves until we saw the principal walk towards us. Mrs. Zeemers was just asking us things like what we think of the school and how we feel about starting our first year of high school. She was a nice lady and had a lot of fuzz on her face–of course, that’s not something Christy and I paid much mind to… but it is something that Lauren pays attention to. So in the next second Lauren jumped in and painfully said, Hey Mrs. Zeemers you kind of remind me of a mutt but not in a weird way. Christy and I mentally slapped our heads and Mrs. Zeemers just awkwardly said bye and left. Oh Lauren, when will she ever learn…

Image by Brett Jordan

I Was Left Behind

It happened in Germany over the summer. My family and I were at a family friend’s house. We ate delicious food and sparkling water–which I didn’t like (I guess sparkling water is more popular in Europe because that’s the only water these people had). All was good until my sisters and cousins or friends said they were going to pick up something and there was no room in the car so I couldn’t go (they were lying, I could tell). I had a feeling they were going to get ice cream and have fun or something. No matter. They’re allowed to have fun whether I’m there or not, I thought. But I still felt sad and stayed in one of the rooms of the house I was in to go on my phone.

Apparently, we were all supposed to go somewhere, to the park nearby. But I couldn’t go. I was in the room so I didn’t notice that almost everyone left–everyone except for the parents of the house. They were surprised to see me and questioned why they (probably my family) forgot to take me with them to the park. I was already feeling sad and I felt even more sad now and impulsively started crying. It wasn’t even a big deal, I probably wasn’t even going to like going to a park in the dry weather. But feeling left out is a feeling that most do not like. Especially if it’s because your dad didn’t bother looking in one of the rooms in the house when he was calling everyone because he assumed I was already taken in the other car and didn’t confirm with the others. Or that’s what he told me when he came back. When the whole situation winded down my dramatic self wrote some poems on my Samsung Note app related to the situation and they’re there to this day.