Life is Beautiful(Abby Callan) I glower at the innocent mathematical equation sprawled on a piece of paper, exasperation rampant in my veins. Just kindly reveal your x, would ya? Sighing, I decide to give it another try. I wrack my brain mercilessly for another 30 minutes and finally give up. That’s it.
I throw my pen across the room and give out a yell of utter frustration. Still untamed, I shove the infuriatingly thorny pile of worksheets across my desk, sending them airborne. For a moment, I simply just stare at the mass of flying papers, depleted and worn out. The typical stress of a school life is driving a typical student nuts. Huh. Splendid. I grunt in submission.

I need air. I’m suffocating inside. I need a mentor. I’m lost. I need a friend to talk to. I need to escape all of these - No, I need a break from all these. Whatever. Fishing out my phone, I search for the name Elliot. Just as I am about to press CALL, a picture of him making a face pops out. I yelp, startled. There’s a message from him.
“A little help here, my friend.”
I smirk. Perfect timing, as usual.

Not bothering to clean up the mess, I scamper out of my room excitedly. I’ll deal with them later.
I walk a few houses down to his house purposefully, wondering what he’s struggling with – I can’t wait to voice my struggle as well. A teasing from him will be inevitable, but then he’s been teasing me ever since I remembered. We always work together as a formidable team. We help each other to overcome fears or problems.

He’s poring over a paper at his wooden alfresco dining table when I arrive, his brows creased in concentration. I take a seat across from him and study his paper. Oh, I’ve got that question paper too, and it’s lying helplessly on the floor of my room right now. We both sigh at the same time.
He looks up for the first time, amused. I quirk a brow. What’s so funny?
“So … same problem, huh?” he shoves that irritating paper into a file and tidies up the table. Unlike me. I frown.
He quirks his brows, expecting a confirmation for the obvious answer. I heave out a dramatically long sigh, point to the dark circles beneath my eyes and give him a what-do-you-think look. He bursts out laughing, just like I’d expected.
“So what’s the solution, mentor?”, I smile mockingly at him.
He leans back, inspects me for a while, chewing his inner jaws intermittently. Serious Elliot is back. In fact, I’ve never seen this Elliot for a who-knows-how-long time. He’s got the same problem, so he has to work out a win-win solution. I gaze at him expectantly, wondering how he’d help me bid the stress goodbye. He knows me better than I myself do sometimes. Uh huh. How pathetic is that?

He’s still studying me, and I’m running out of patience when the corner of his lips suddenly turns up, revealing a solution-worked-out smirk.
“We take a break”, he said simply. Well, that was what I thought – “First”, he interrupts my thoughts, as if reading my mind. I throw up my hand and let it fall to my side, resigned.
“All right, lead the way, mentor.” That’s what I want to do anyway, a temporary escape from reality. That is, with company.

Elliot glances up at the sky and frowns, as if assessing the weather, and smiles his secretive smile again. “A walk to the beach. How’s that?”, he beams excitedly at me. Of course, I nod. He’s the professor here anyway, I’ll see what he has come up with.
He strides across the lawn, plucks a massive (like really massive) leaf from a tree. Seemingly not satisfied, he plucks a bigger one. I grimace. He is so busted now. His dad is going to be really, really mad.
Enigmatic Elliot then nods in approval at the leaves in his hand. He saunters towards the fence, which is grasped by numerous tendrils. I frown at him, perplexed, not having even the slightest inkling of where he is going with that. He breaks the tendrils into a few parts tentatively, then walks back to me with two in his hands. I squint and examine them. They’re about 20 centimetres long.

My mind is reeling with tonnes of questions, but I don’t question his plan. Instead, I just follow him out of the front gates, and onto the gravel path that leads to the sandy beach. We walk in silence, lost in our own thoughts. We know each other well enough not to feel awkward in this kind of still silence.

Though the ambience is convivial and the sceneries are soul-soothing, reality still refuses to loosen its grab on me. The looming future and stress haunt my mind. I just can’t keep calm. I’m so restless. So, I kick at every stone that comes my way absent-mindedly.
“Helloooo, my childhood heaven!” Elliot exclaims beside me. I look up.
There’s a twinge of rosy pink on the horizon, and pale purple embroiders the sky subtly. The sun’s setting soon. Whoa. I gape at the magnificent view. I don’t have much time to be awe-inspired anyway. Elliot grabs me and leads me to the centre of the large expanse of sand. He flops down and pats the empty space beside him.
Settling down, I ask him quizzically, “Now what?”
He hands me one of the leaves and fishes a penknife out of his pocket. "Instead of grumbling today, we’re gonna count our blessings.” He stated matter-of-factly. I shoot my eyebrow further, not really understanding.
He flops onto his stomach with the leaf in front of him. I join him.
“Together”, he adds. “Think about our childhoods, what we’ve overcome together … blah blah blah. You know, the happy things.”
Oh. OK, now I get it. Interesting. I sprawl on the sand, eager to relive my sweet childhood memories.

Together, we wrack our brains and engrave the blissful memories onto our own leaf. The pranks we played on each other, the first time we made banana muffins, the time we sneaked into the woods to explore….

It’s only a matter of minutes before we run out of leaves. We add the last word unwillingly, still laughing all the way. I gasp a lungful of air to calm myself, my stomach still aching from the uncontrollable constant laughing. Elliot’s on his back, his hands holding his stomach as his body shakes with laughter. It’s hilarious.
Finally, I couldn’t torture my stomach further and come to a halt gradually. Elliot’s panting, and he starts coughing lightly between laughters. Somehow we know the limit and calm ourselves down.

I sit up, and gaze into the now orange-pink sky, a fireball sinking gradually in the horizon. I hum appreciatively. Life could be so beautiful when we view it in another perspective. I breathe in the salty breeze, and feel it caress my skin. Life really is immensely beautiful.

“So, whenever a storm knocks you down, you must get up and face it. You wouldn’t want to miss the rainbow”, Elliot sits up and says contemplatively. “There’s no eternal storm, anyway.” And I sense his grin.

For the few minutes left, we just sit there, two best friends shoulder to shoulder, appreciating the beauty of nature, and letting the sunset illuminate our blissful expressions. And I have to say again, life is so beautiful, really.

“Hey, we still have unfinished business.” Elliot stands up, stretches, and holds out his hand for me. Perplexed, I grab his hand and haul myself up. He opens his other hand to show me the unattended tendrils and gives me that cryptic smile again.
He reaches down to collect the leaves and passes mine to me. “Scroll it and tie it up”, he instructs. Then what? Throw it into the sea? Well, I’m right. Even for the first time. He leads me towards the sea and says, “Let’s spread our bliss.”
Together, we throw them into the sea. Good thing they don’t come washing back by the waves. In fact, they sink after a while. Strange. I guess tendrils are heavier than salt water then. Or, maybe the leaves.
I turn around to find Elliot gazing at me expectantly. Grateful, I thank him, “You’ve done an extremely good job, mentor.” And he grins triumphantly like a little boy.

It’s true. I’m contented and happy right now. Life isn’t so bad after all, and life is too short to even consider grudges and complaints. And, when you’ve really counted all your blessings, you’ll realize how teeny-tiny your setbacks are in comparison, how lucky you are.

The sky has turned purplish cerulean now, and the blazing fireball is nowhere to be seen.
Elliot throws his arm around my shoulder and cheers loudly, “You and I, my friend, are going to conquer the world!”
I giggle and yell back at the sea. “Yes, we will!”

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