People of all sorts of religion, race and backgrounds co-existed in perfect harmony.
Older inhabitants and settlers rose from torture, slaughter, slavery and colonisation. They had to work together.
The aftermath of that era was truly an image of Peace. It was about their purpose. The Human race was as one.
United in their differences; they fought off everything that disturbed their tranquillity which came from offshore.
All they wanted was happiness, a place to live and call it their home. Even made Independence. A proud nation.
The religious holidays were all celebrated together. Within every 2 weeks there's very likely to be a day off or two.
The people began to separate themselves eventually. Mostly due to the outside world's influence or the internet providing knowledge to the young generation who would just believe and soak up everything.
The Island slowly lost its radiant beauty of peace. Some religions became more oppressive and some became secluded. The power of Influence was something that could shape entire civilisations. It wasn't about land or materialistic things...
It was a frame of mind. Bobby witnessed how people are taught to hate each other.
Perhaps that also played a part for all this Youth Crime that's been going on.
He observed this macroscopic behaviour as a very young teenager. And because of that, he trusted in what his parents also raised him to see and understand; "Unity in Diversity".
There was so much to learn. With the help of the Internet, he opened his mind on all those things. Not to believe in
a particular religion or culture, but to understand what this universe was about... He could see what was in their minds.
It's like a little mechanism. And people like to get lost in the actions of what happened, rather than seeing the very nature of that 'thing' and what it does to others or even themselves. So many questions and things to conform to.
But he made a few friends with girls from the cybercafes and they had a different vision of how things were.
It was fascinating to learn from them and in doing so his social interactions became much more friendlier and gentle.
Thankfully his family moved him to another school and was mix-gendered. Things were extremely different.
More peaceful, the walls and gates didn't even need to be closed. The previous school forced to keep students in, while this one protected them from anything outside. The boy was perplexed by this social behaviour. Even after spending a year at the mixed school, he seemed to always be on alert, almost paranoid. His senses (specially hearing) were highly sensitive or acute. Even in a noisy crowd he could hear a female's voice if she called for him quietly. The females preferred playful, caring, funny, docile males rather than the brute, perverted, emotionless ones.
The combat skills he learnt became useless but he then turned it into Cycling, Swimming and a variant of Badminton.
Bobby was the first to play badminton at the new school (but he was alone). So he created his own style of badminton by hitting a ping-pong ball against an old basketball backboard that had no hoop.
He played like this for a few days to train his accuracy, till one day a girl approached him with a racket.
There was no need to play against a backboard anymore. Only for self-training.
In this game:
There's no net/table, they can move freely in their half, there is a middle borderline but there are no boundaries around..
They must hit the ball directly at each other else it's foul. The ball is allowed to bounce multiple times anywhere.
The aim is to not allow the ball to fly pass each other.
The victory feels more like it's based on the loser. It's a battle of endurance and reflex.
Whoever fails to deflect the ball and allowed it to fly through (or hit the body) is letting themselves down.
Otherwise they would hit the ball in a way that makes them run side to side a lot. It's cheeky and silly to represent the victor as the one who hits the ball on the far side of the opponent where they can't reach at all. Everyone agreed it was lame
because matches would last 2~5 hits only, or under 1~2 mins, which actually kills the fun and entertainment.
So this new style was invented. It gave an amazing sensation, it's not about who "wins". It's about testing each other's reflexes, strength and agility. At the end of a match, it feels good. And even the loser feels like a winner, for "style".
The joy was in deflecting, striking, and lobbing for a long time until eventually one fails by their own fault.
It could last for several minutes of awesome lightning fast action that looked like sword-fights to deflect projectiles.
He'd send the ball between two players and have them confused/hesitate on who should've saved it.
Suddenly, it's a little mind-game in a rapid agility sport.
There's no time to say: "I got it!"... The ball is whacked at full force to the face that only reflexes decide.
This special sport was way too fast for most players, so the regular badminton took over (using shuttle).
But very few still enjoyed playing this with Bobby and kept him on his toes. The girls weren't just cute, they were badass.
However, he was sort of starting from square one all over again.
The reputation made was gone and had to get used to the new, totally opposite environment. A relearning experience.
Thanks to his dad they both became locally popular due to a sketch about education.
It was becoming an addiction to gaming or get online everyday, to a point where the same LAN/Gaming Community was created a second time, occasionally making them compete with the first.
And a few months after, took part in online tournaments to challenge better players.
Virtual life was growing healthily, and so was his real life. The family also moved to a much larger, 2-floor home.
It felt like a waste of time to start from scratch when moving schools/homes, so to preserve the friendship/reputation was the reason in focusing on the virtual world and have everyone connected. Even if he moves again people will still know him.
Sometimes he would spend all night till dawn at cybercafes. His parents felt safe with his friends who cared for him.
They also knew the owners at that place well and have been invited home before.
On Bobby's birthday, his parents decided to buy him a nice present, an expensive professional badminton racket/bat.
Everyday he'd carry the bat in his backpack and the eye-catching black rubber-coated handle with blue metal highlights
was exposed over the shoulders, people thought he was carrying a sword.
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