Thursday, Decmber 28th 1998

My best friend Clyde lived a couple of houses down the lane. They lived on a beautiful two story house by the beach surrounded by white parapet wall that runs all the way to the train tracks. From Clyde's room balcony we could see the ocean waves crashing into the golden beaches of Mt Lavinia. The Mt Lavinia Hotel stood majestically to the north and the modest skyline of the Colombo was vaguely visible distantly to the south. In the evenings, as the sun sets, the beach bustled with people engaged in a variety of activity. Our parents forbade us from going to the beach without parental supervision, but from the balcony - our crow's nest - we observed everything that went around in the area. It is on this balcony we schemed various plots that included everything from spying on Clyde's older sister to securing world domination.