Death of Innocence

Reprinted with permission from yiliang. Original here.

Imagine someone 12 years old.
On the verge of a new set of hopes and prospects for her.
The future would seem endless. She could be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer.
She has the potential to be a pillar of society, a leader and an example to follow.
She works hard, she learns, she dreams of spreading her wings and being somebody.

Now imagine, she’s attacked in a riot just over 2 months before her birthday.
Whacked and bashed up so bad she’s left in a coma.

She stares out with her eyes, seeing all. She can’t move.
She can’t scream as her “carers” drug her, pushing her back. Back into her coma.
She can’t stir to resist, flex, reach.

But she grows, and she rages.
She yearns for the day where she can burst out, flaming forward like a phoenix from the ashes.
Soaring, spinning to recapture her fullest potential. To recapture her dreams. To seize her fullest potential once again.

I know this girl, now a woman. You do too.
She’s the Spirit of Malaysia. Born August 31st 1957.

And knocked down brutally in a riot.
On May 13th. 1969.