• Time is a strange thing, never stopping, never changing its course. It’s also a painful thing as it can separate you from the ones you love and care about, at least that what has happened to me. So many years had kept me separate and now they mean nothing to me, nothing at all, not with her there with me. Time kept us separate, now I have cheated against it, and this is our story. Time’s and mine.

    It seems so short and yet so long at that time, when a recall time when every thing happened at once, and the first thing I must start with is Casina Isino. Although those words meant nothing to anyone around me, I heard it said many times in my head and in myths. I wasn’t that smart but I even knew what there was nothing called a Casina Isino, so why all the cautions around it. All I can remember of that part of time was the annoying feeling that I was leaving all my friends around me to go to a different school, for the reason that I was special. I didn’t realise how precious and special I was until time caught up with me, but I’m getting ahead here, at least I think so. I can’t remember everything, so I’ll have to tell you what I can remember, so please forgive the huge gaps in knowledge.

    The metal was burning my eyes out and no one else was going to move, so I had to and well... I was feeling angry so I chucked it into a wall, I didn’t mean to. I’m a sporting person and very good may I add. That’s when I saw those words, Casina Isino, engraved into the metal and when I tried to get it out of the wall it wouldn’t come, no matter the amount of force I placed on it. All I knew, looking at the red-hot thing, was that I was in trouble.

    Okay, not my fault but I have to skip this part because I really can’t remember anything expect for searing pain in my back and a number of new wounds... So, my dad an aggressive person I didn’t really care before because I still loved, but I was told that I would be in a different school to my friends and I was angry at him. The pain had appeared, but I suppose that’s the way life goes. Time wasn’t very helpful either otherwise I would have told what I knew, but it made me forget most of things about what happened then. I hate time! I really do.

    Next thing I knew was that I was on the school grounds, and there were a few people around, you thought it might have been expensive to come here. It didn’t show very well, the school was dull and BORING. The school was tall and grand with spiralling towers on both sides, the red brick shining on the building and the thin sharp windows (see what I mean, BORING). The front doors, on the other hand, were very different with a single picture of a pair of eyes that penetrated the soul to the core and not just mine as I could tell form the other students. Then the head teacher came out of the side gate, his eyes hidden behind the glare that covered his glasses, so I couldn’t tell if he was testing us on our appearance or what. Then came out that deep voice that shook everyone around me but I didn’t really care, he had a deep loud voice, big whoop.

    “Welcome to our school, I hope you have had pleasant journey. I am sure that you will enjoy yourself but before I introduce you to the teachers and rest of the pupils, I will tell you something that everyone who has come and gone from this school has known...” I was really losing interest at this point “...our school myth”

    That had caught my attention. School myth? I remember wondering what that was all about as every school I had been had just told us how they had started, but never a school myth. “When the school was first built in 1924 it was to be open to all the young war orphans and their head teacher was supposed to be the best that has ever walked this earth. It is said that during the year 1927, the head teacher took interest in a young girl and nobody knows why, I suppose the head teacher felt for this 15 year-old orphan called Faira that had come to the school. It has been said; for the head teacher had never said expect for a few words, that a monster came and attacked Faira but before she died the head teacher was to have chucked three linking golden rings to Faira out of the study on the first floor, then Faira buried them within the grounds.”

    Why didn’t the head teacher just go out and attack the monster with a rifle or something? “The head teacher was distraught because the head was trapped in inside the school and rescuing Faira would have brought the monster inside with her. The head must finished the picture of Faira within the hour because just an hour later one of the teachers saw the head teacher climbing the tree that was in the bottom corner of the grounds. The teacher shouted and it is said that the head turned enough so the teacher could see the tears ran down the face of the best head teacher that ever was before the head disappeared never to return. The picture Faira is now hanging in the poolroom, which you should see tomorrow."

    "To honour Faira we have three plastic golden rings that will be given to the best player of tennis, swimmer and the best rounder, which Faira was the best at, at the beginning of the year and then to the best at these sports at the end of the year. Competition begins tomorrow, but you don’t have to enter, just enjoy yourself."
    With that he turned around and pushed the glaring front doors wide open. “Welcome to the house of Casina”

    I’m not going to bore you with the details about what happened and what the inside looked, or the teachers” names, but if you really want to just type House of Casina school into the google search engine and click on the second one. You can get the basics there and how to apply... blah blah. The thing I was looking forward to was the sports the next day, I was sure I could win. I could swing a racket like a professional, could swim like those guys on the top 5 charts for best swimmer, and I could hit and run like athletic. I’m not kidding by the way; I did tell you that I was good at sports, although I’ll never be as good as her.

    The next day the sun was in it’s brightest and not a cloud in sight, which was unusual for a September morning (I think time might have had something to do with it), but I didn’t really care. I was going to win those three rings and show that I was the best and even better than that girl, Faira.

    I remember every swing and hit that I did in that tennis match: backhand, forehand x2, backhand x3 etc. I don’t really want to bore you with the details. I still remember the cheers and smiles that were beaming through that mask of no emotion when I was presented with first gold ring. Then came swimming and that was easily done because I was at the other end of the 50-metre pool when the others were only 25% of the way there. Some of those smiles turned to scowls as I was called the winner once again, and I don’t know why but I was singing old MacDonald and loads of people were joining in, it was fun until another person near me, tripped, tackling me and driving me under the water. I remember the bubbles swirling up around my body and my chest was feeling tight. The colours were bright and clear, blue with the white of the waves when they build up with the sunlight shinning through.

    I came up laughing and shaking my head so it wouldn’t feel as heavy as it did, when the teacher came up to me and helped me out of the water. He presented me with a plastic gold ring and said “only rounders to go” and I looked at the pictures on the wall and that’s when I first saw her face. Faira’s face was full of joy but the picture contained an essence of sadness in it, like the painter had been sorry to paint it, I could feel that sadness and pain, and I didn’t know why. That sadness followed me all the time I was getting changed out of my swimming costume and into my P.E kit ready for rounders.

    I wander outside and played rounders with the best I could under a tree at the bottom of the garden of the school grounds. Oh I remember that tree because the joy I was feeling at that moment and thankfulness I was feeling towards the tree for its shade would turn it something. I remember the hate and the panic at the end of the game, after I had won, pouring out of the school towards the tree; it shocked me to the bone. The male teacher came up to me and said, “You have beaten the school record for all three sports, come inside and I’ll get you the last golden ring”. I remember that I had no trainers on and the ground slowly turning from the green cool grass to the hot yellow prickly sand, which burnt my feet, but I still didn’t put my trainers on.

    I remember going through the big wooden oak door, knowing the teacher was behind me, to a room covered with dust, it was like a sandstorm had hit this room from top to bottom. The windows were covered with sand; the floor had markings in the shape of handprints and the room had a large stone block with the handprints on it. I turned around to find the teacher but he wasn’t there and although I had left the door open for him it had closed. I opened it and looked out over the small gravel courtyard were there were tables and chairs but it still had the desert look to it. Three people occupied three chairs, two I could tell were teachers but one was a student. And how I remember that face from the picture, it was Faira; the living breathing legend was in front of me. The teachers rose from their sitting position and bowed to me, like I was the head teacher, and it snapped to me that I was. I asked Faira to come with to welcome the new students to the school so they wouldn’t be nervous, and she came. I remember so little of the next few days to write but I know that I grew very attached to Faira and instead of my student: she was a sister. That’s how on that fateful day I can remember very detail, right down to the stairs what happened and the look on her face and those two words.

    She was outside, reading a book in the garden and I was inside painting a picture of Faira, the same picture that hung in the poolroom, and there was no one else about because it was a free day, Faira and I were alone in the school. I had to get a better look at one of the details of Faira’s face, her eyes because they didn’t look right on the picture. I looked out of the window at were Faria was sitting on the grassy ground, when I saw that thing move out of the tree, the tree I remember playing rounders under, and now I understand why there was panic coming from the school when I played rounders. The panic was for Faira. That thing was coming for her, first at a walking pace, then trot when my screams and shout got to Faira. She had turned around to look behind her, when it started to run. I remember the look on her face as she started to run towards the back door, the book as it dropped from her hand, it pages flapping open in the wind.

    I knew she would never get through the door because one of the teachers had locked it and taken the only key and there was no time to tell her, but she never got to the door anyway. The thing caught her. I remember its big brute of a body curling its self around her, its large monster teeth driving into some part of her body, her screams echoing inside my head and it howls of glee of getting a meal. My hand was red raw from where I banged on the glass of the door yelling at it to let her go and my only words were the monster’s name, Casina Isino. They tingled through my body, causing me more pain from my hand, but not as much as watching that thing hurt Faira.

    The knowledge flew to my head then, the Casina Isino had chosen that time to strike because it hated sunlight and the sun had just been hidden behind a cloud when it struck. The cloud was coming to an end and the sun re-appeared in its ever-gleaming self, and that thing couldn’t handle it. It slammed straight into the glass door and that when I saw its full body. It was part human and part animal. It stood on two legs, had short arms and its face was all as human as it would get, and the rest of it was a green Komodo dragon dripped in Faira’s blood. It was the size of a man and had the eye glint of a man who wants something and this thing wanted to be in the school. It grabbed Faira by the neck and held her in front of the door and I saw for one of the last times Faira”s face, her eyes pleading not to let him because as much as I loved her she loved me. Then it just chucked her away and started banging on the door, its howls echoing around the big empty school, but I didn’t want it here. I wanted it dead.

    I wanted Faira to be safe and well. But that was never meant to be.

    I ran upstairs to my study and looked for the thing that I had meant to give Faira for her birthday, three golden rings inter linked with each in one straight line. I opened the window, the metal bar cooling my hand from the fever that raged in my body and chucked the rings to her. She caught them in a swift movement, and I remembered the thing the teacher had said “the swiftness of Faira has never been matched and I suppose never will”, and it was true it never had been matched and I hoped it never would. I saw her pale, white face look up at me, her eyes full of tears and I watched her hands bury the golden joy we had both loved in the ground. I ran back down stairs again to get her out of the garden; those wooden stairs with its smooth polish tripped me up. If they hadn’t then maybe I would have reached Faira in time and I have always wished they hadn’t. The Casina Isino monster was dead and when I had reached the room I had been painting, so was Faira; her body spread over the place she had buried the rings.

    I looked at the picture and wanted to tear it up into shreds, into so many pieces that it would be impossible to put it back together, but it had to be finished. Her eyes were formed in my mind and I drew and painted them, but they weren’t full of joy. They were full of her sadness and my pain; they weren’t her eyes but ours. I couldn’t handle it so, for the first time that day I walked out of the building and towards the tree that the monster had appeared from, when I heard a shout and everything turned back into a sandstorm area. I turned, no monster’s body, no Faira’s body, nothing but dust and sand.

    That is where I found myself back in the garden with its green grass and ever-comforting smile but that smile was not for me. I walked back out past the teacher to the place where Faira buried the rings and started to dig, the tears from my eyes falling on to the ground, and then onto the golden colour of the rings. I had found them. I curled my hand around the linking chain of gold and felt the name I had carved into them, that should have been many years ago but felt a few seconds ago. I looked at the tree that had hidden the Casina Isino and had brought about the fate of Faira, a fate she didn’t deserve. I walked over, feeling and hurting with each step the first head teacher of the school in 1927 walked to honour Faira. Each step was more and more painful with the sadness I felt, and the more I walked I need Faira claming presence.

    I curled up in that tree from which the monster had come from and listen to the skies, the birds, the ticking of my last moments in this world. In the end some people don’t have a soul mate or a friends, all they have is family and that is what I wanted. My sister, Faira was my family. 80 years and the borders of life and death divided us from each other but that was about change because there is somewhere that time has no part of and that was where Faira waited for me. A bomb was waiting underneath the tree had been left for years waiting for someone too active it and I had activated.

    I didn’t even feel it as it went, for I my heart had died in 1927 and my body was worn and tired. The person that is now nothing more than an unspoken story on the other hand received my soul and the golden rings was found and finally linked together in the soul. I wish I could write more about Faira that you would understand, but there is nothing left for me to write, for it is all an unspoken, forgotten myth but I still believe if there was one Casina Isino there must be more. So be warned, some myths are actually true, however silly or stupid they seem. Oh and by the way, time wants to talk to you, something about another myth. Be nice, she’s not very patient most of the time.