" It is just a pair of hands, what's so great about it? "

I remembered saying those words when they told me to write a narrative essay about something personal and experiences that I experienced before based on the pictures of ' Hands ' they gave us. My first reaction to it was .... "Meh!" and "what am I suppose to write? and with ' hands ' in it I don't know what to write!" I was thinking hard of it, trying to link my story with ' hands ', and most of all to make it sounds logical. The problem is the imagination in me is too wild, just by looking to the pictures of the hands I already have 100 stupid stories to write but just like they said, "based on something personal, about yourself", that just ruined my 1001 stupid stories. I hate writing something which is "Logic", give me a potato and a bowl and I'll write you a story about a brave knight with his legendary shield sent from above to kill an evil witch and the knight ends up being cursed to become a decapitated potato.

   

     But life is life so I have to choose a picture of hands to create a story, so I decided to pick the number 2 picture, where a hand is grabbing another hand. Looks simple, but sometimes look can be deceiving, too deceiving.

   

        The first thing that I can think of it is, "Helping One Another" , well, simple as said but complex to elaborate. So let us start, and here is my logical story of my life....and hands...

"Dude, are you sure about this? they are not as easy as you think they would be". So he said that, Emmanuel, a friend of mine trying to change Darren's mind, also a friend of mine, about taking on the seniors in a match. "I think it's a good idea, though they may beat the heck out of us but erm....just give it a shot la, maybe we can win, haha" trying to sound convincing but I was actually nervous when I said those words, I actually never played against my seniors, they are professionals in this. "Dude, come on, we will never know how good they are and how good we have become if we don't take a shot on it, we can do this la, trust me, we have few weeks to practice what? beside there's nothing for us to lose if we lose the match, right?" Darren with his attitude, they never change, from the first day I met him until now, he is always the confident one, never back off of a challenge. I admire his attitude, I learn from him, I dream of being a confident man, who does not hesitate and fear nothing, so my dad can be proud of me, so that someday I can be like him, someday.

     "but still, don't you think it is just a waste of time? why don't we just play against our peers from the other schools, beside, it has been a long time since the last time we played against them, don't you miss playing with them?" Emmanuel with another of his excuses. "Oh come on!!! Dude, we have been playing with them a lot of times before, I'm bored of it, same faces same playing styles, dude, we need to challenge ourselves man!! It's time for us to mix up with the big dogs, to improve is to go beyond the limit" Darren then looked at me after saying that, "Zul, don't you agree with me? Don't you think it's time for us to try this?". I smiled. "Frankly saying, I have to agree with you, I have also been longing to play against our seniors, I want to play in another level, a higher one, beside, we may learn something new from them. A new skill or a...a.. a new strategy maybe, then we have more tricks under our sleeves to be use against the other teams, right

Manuel?" .

       With long face and sweats dripping from his chin, I know he was about to give up and end up agreeing with us, Emmanuel is our team's captain, but he seems to be in the shadow of his older brother, Billy, 4 years older than us, he is also a basketball player, he is the founder of one of the most famous basketball teams in the state. Known as the 'ALL KENEW' ,they have been playing against almost every teams in the state, they were nicknamed as 'Giants killer' by their opponents, why? though they came from a rural areas but they came as a very strong team, they defeated several of the strongest and famous teams in the state. The fact that his brother is a very influential and strong captain, Manuel become unsure of his own ability, holding him back to try to go beyond his limit, to do something new, and crazy.

      "I... I...erm....God damn it!! okay fine!! we will play, against the seniors, against....my brother's team", He finally gave up. "Owh yeah!! now that is the Manuel I know!! come here you bastard!!" Darren with joy hugged him and dance all around the classroom. I was also happy with the decision that he made, but there's still some part of me, I mean a little part of me that actually afraid to do this, I actually never played against a strong team like theirs, I played against seniors before but not with a legendary team. "now then, I will gather up all of our team members and spread this happy news to them, oh my God I can't believe I am going to play against your brother's team man!!! thank you so much!!" after thanking him, Darren then left the classroom to get the rest to come and then tell them about it.

     Everybody was so excited when Darren crack the news to them. Just as expected, actually we have been keeping a promise between ourselves that someday, we will become strong and acknowledged by the other teams, we were in form 1 when we made that promise, so young and naive.

            So we trained, a lots, we spent countless hours in the basketball court, planning numbers of plans and strategies, we have been dripping sea of sweats, we don't care if it is raining or hot, we only have one thing to mind about, the match.