Punching Bags

A sport we often practised. Back then, lightings in lift consisted of a fluorescent tube confined within a cage, presumably to prevent theft. And the lift stopped at the eighth, fifth and ground level. We would enter the lift and with a twist of the fluorescent tube, the lights went off and all of us go for a free for all punching session.

When the door opened and light streamed in, we beheld ourselves in various states of injury and undress. David was the first to fall victim to these punching sessions. When he first moved into Block 13, we decided to let him have a foretaste of our fun, a sort of orientation before one qualifies to join the band of brothers.

As time passed our sessions became more and more frequent, and more and more violent. David himself would learn the techniques of how not to get injured, and how to cause the most injury – we even developed a strategy of offensive defence, which meant that we would enter into an aggressive frenzy hurling punches and profanities to prevent others from harming us first. ‘Tua sceah buay chun’ meaning vociferous but ineffective.
Once a session got so violent that the lift was knocked out of alignment and we got trapped in the elevator. We were later rescued by the maintenance people.

Offence is sometimes the best defence.