Tales from a Year Four Classroom

 

Tales from a Year Four Classroom

Golden Eggs and Mortality

Denzil Jayasinghe
·

Year four arrived, not a conquest but a quiet transition. The same faces, sun-baked desks, a classroom fraternity hardened by shared experience. Rohan Vincent, Rohan Weerakkody, Sirimal De Zoysa — names echoing on the dusty playground, each carrying the weight of childhood bravado and a hint of something darker. They were our protectors, these boys with fists that spoke louder than words, a shield against the petty cruelties of schoolyard life. Yet, their dominion came at a cost, a silent understanding that loyalty had its price.

Mrs Dulcie De Silva, our teacher, wielded the cane with a practised hand, not in anger but with grim efficiency. Arithmetic became the language of survival, each multiplication table a mantra chanting against the future’s uncertainties. Music lessons with Mrs. Pieris, the “Singing Teacher,” were an escape, her booming voice filling the room with English melodies, a world away from the harsh realities outside.

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Then came the “Foolish Man” and his golden eggs, a cautionary tale in my memory. Greed, the text warned, was a serpent waiting to strike. But was it truly greed that drove the man? Or was it something more — desperation, a yearning for a better life clawing at his soul? Like the empty nest of the dead bird, the answer remained elusive.

My nickname, “Denna, Dena, Denoe,” echoed the rhythm of the local drums, a constant reminder of my otherness. It was harmless, I told myself, yet it carried the weight of difference, a subtle drumbeat marking my outsider status.

Michael Udagama’s death cast a long shadow. A bright boy, struck down by a simple wound, a testament to the fragility of life in a land where antibiotics were a luxury. His used clothes, passed down to Rohan Weerakkody, became a chilling reminder of mortality, a ghost walking our corridors.

Bro. Marcus, the new Director, was a figure of amusement, his eccentricities a welcome distraction from the harsher realities. Yet, beneath the surface, there was a quiet efficiency, a man who kept the machinery of the school running even as the world outside teetered on the brink.

The Scouts, with their khaki uniforms and promise of adventure, remained forever out of reach. My father’s refusal was a harsh lesson in the limitations of our lives, a reminder that dreams often collide with the hard realities of limited resources.

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Sri Lanka
Schools
Memories

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