Trauma

I've only lived for less than 21 years, and in this time there have been certain things that affected me so much that I cannot help but revisit the same problems when I sleep. That's the flip side of dreaming then - for every wild flight of imagination that is so characteristic of the good dreams I have, there's the evil twisted sibling nightmare that's well, too real for me sometimes.

Of the two recurrent nightmares I still have, one of them, freshly reimagined in my head last night, was of the A Levels. Yes, you read that right. The dreaded A Levels.

It's the same thing everytime. The whole school's in the school hall collecting their results, and as I queue up to collect mine from my form teacher, I notice how everyone in front of me is getting perfect grades, a government scholarship as well as an acceptance letter from a prestigious university overseas, all at the same time.

When it's my turn though, Ms Gong sneers at me, tells me how I'm the only one in the whole school who failed (4 F9s!). As the whole hall quietens to investigate this unusual case of failure, she then delivers the coup de grace - an acceptance letter from the Army.

Man, how I hate that dream.