The Seashell Necklace

Nena-nee made me a necklace of seashells tied on black thread and fastened by a button. The seashells were gathered from a beach in Labuan where we spent a year for our matriculation year. Nena-nee is good with her hands. She can make something useful out of almost anything. Most of the time, they’re not only useful but beautiful as well. Like the time she transformed an old pair of jeans into a pencil case and a purse. Or the time when she sat idly weaving bunga telur flowers into a plain basket so that one minute it was a spare change basket and the next minute it looked like wedding hantaran.

The necklace had five shells on it. I wore it and never took it off. But I'm a clumsy and careless person. One by one, the shells fell off and broke. Only one remained. It might seem like an irony that the remaining shell was the plainest of the lot. But there it was and that was a fact. And I continued to wear the necklace for years.

Sometimes I'd look at the necklace and contemplate its existence. Its history was much like Nena-nee's and mine. The beginnings of our friendship was what some people only read of in books -- Friends, enemies, fellow social outcasts, friends again -- a memorable and life changing experience. Maybe I'll tell you the whole story. Maybe I won't. But like that cluster of shells on the necklace, our high school friends left us one by one, pursuing their own path in life. And I was left with the person whom I thought was the plainest of all my friends during my high school years -- Nena-nee.

It shames me now that I was so shallow to only be able to see Nena-nee as plain and replaceable. But Nena-nee is like that shell on my necklace -- she stayed with me to the bitter end. Well, I'm not bitter and my life's only just begun but it fits the dramatic mood, albeit cliché.

So I treasure that necklace as a token of my friendship with Nena-nee, as proof that things which we initially take as common and unremarkable can actually turn out to be something much much more.

Now, the clasp button has fallen off from wear and I no longer carry the shell around my neck. I still keep the necklace in my suitcase wherever I go but even if clumsy and careless me loses that necklace one day, it can never change the irrevocable fact that Nena-nee is my friend.

You'll have to put up with me for a long time yet, Nena-nee.

P/S Mugen thinks Jiyuu is wasting time typing soft stuff that Nena already knows. Go do your FYP, Jiyuu.