17:27, 26/05/2003

Dear Diary,

My life is ruined. Not in the melodramatic, exaggerated way of vain girls when they chip a nail and begin shrieking like a banshee. My life is quite literally ruined.

I want to know, why the world seems so against me. Against what feeble hope I have, that wavers and flickers.

The world, I believe, is a big colouring book. It's waiting for people to brush against every animal, every tree, every being, adding on the magical touch of colour that everyone longs for. Yet, day by day, the world that I've painstakingly coloured- Kris's brilliant smile, Mama's glossy tresses, Papa's tan skin- is darkening.

Do you believe that everything is black and white? I don't. I've seen the colour, and how it shines so brightly. I've seen that same colour bleed out into so many shades of darkness- white, black, dark grey, light grey. It's a monochromatic spectrum that brings nothing but gloom.

Jeymia turned Kris completely against me. She walked over to me during recess, a smile that on the surface looked utterly innocent, a smile that was curved perfectly. I knew better, and immediately put up my guard. Jeymia hated me. She had to have an ulterior motive. True enough, she did.

She told me, in a sickly sweet tone injected with venom, to stop 'poisoning' Kris's mind. She threatened to get her father, the boss of the thriving company Wallace and Co, to fire Papa, who had recently begun working there.

Just then, Kris walked over.

Jeymia pretended to fall down dramatically, even whimpering and shedding crocodile tears as she sprawled in an elegant position on the floor. In a wounded voice, she wailed that she had been saying hi when I suddenly shoved her down. Oh, if you'd seen her performance!

I tried to explain myself, but Kris refused to listen to reason. She helped Jeymia up, shot me a hate-filled glare, and loudly screamed at me to 'stay out of her affairs' and that her friends were 'none of my business'. Then, she and Jeymia walked off.

As they walked away, Jeymia glanced back, smirked at me triumphantly and mouthed the words 'I win'.

Guess what the sadistic cherry on top of this sundae of pain and betrayal was?

Mama, on her way home from her office, had been knocked down by a huge cement truck. She was declared dead on impact, and the family members were supposed to do all the funeral planning and stuff but Papa had gone ahead and done everything without me. I will never ever get the chance again to see Mama's twinkling eyes, hear her melodious laugh, watch as her rosy lips move while she talks. Mama's gone.

Forever.

Love,

Angel