A perfectly (un)ordinary day

I woke up. The alarm didn’t go off again, or rather I didn’t hear it, but that didn’t stop some really loud bell from waking me up and reminding me that I’m late again, as usual, and that once more I have to cram everything into those few minutes. Even though I’m fully aware of the situation I have to face, I still take my sweet time with everything… Rolling up the blinds, and again that piercing ray that makes me want to crawl back into bed and say fuck it to all the obligations waiting for me, but still, that lack of immorality, or rather that surplus of responsibility in this pumpkin on my shoulders, won’t allow it, and it shuts my eyelids to shield me from the biting morning sun that says: “Good morning, this is your new teenage day. Enjoy it.”

The teenage years, something so confusing and full of surprises, as if the hormones in us were deliberately toying with our brains, after they’ve finally, thank fuck, finished with our bodies, so that it starts to look like a circus they put on just to amuse themselves, and we’re the means, or rather more like a puppet that the puppeteer holds and steers without any hint of what comes next or why any of it is happening at all…

So, after that enlightening encounter with the morning rays, the eyelids want to bring those lashes together even more. Next up are the stairs. Steep, light-coloured, set in the darkest part of the house, waiting to let out that familiar creak and announce to everyone present, awake and asleep alike: here I come, and I’m late again. Since I don’t drink coffee and don’t smoke, I’ve got no excuse for sitting and, quite literally, zoning out at a single spot on the navy blue sofa across from me. Those few minutes seem to give me strength for the rest of the day ahead, physically as much as mentally, so I don’t hesitate to use them, no matter how much time it eats into getting to the long-since-agreed meeting place.

I’ve done everything, brushed my teeth, eaten, got dressed, made the bed, now it’s time to head out, I’m late but whatever, better late than never. I walk, the wind makes it hard going but I don’t give up that easily, I push on.. Headphones in, a bit of Drum’n’Bass to wake up in the morning.

I’m here. Same door, same entrance, same hallway as for the past 3 years, but they don’t put me off because I know the same faces are waiting for me behind the door of some classroom. With the first hello from the mouths of people dear to me, the day gets better, and then come the stories about last night’s game, busted betting slips, or some more important events that marked the previous evening. After a short while the teacher walks into the classroom too, who, luckily for me, is late as usual, and so leaves room for people like me, that is, for those naturally gifted at being late.

While he slowly logs the lesson, staring at the red and white columns of the class register, he’s probably, like all of us at our desks, longing for that sweet sound of the bell announcing: “It’s Friday, last class is over!”. The lesson goes on despite our secret, and yet public, wishes.

One more boring lesson in some compulsory subject that I’ll only ever need if I sign up for one of those quiz shows, of which, by the way, there are more and more.

Then come the breaks, new lessons, breaks again, all more or less forgettable moments filling the long stretch of time that has to trickle by, at least until the end of the school day. One unsettling moment of that day is getting closer, one that, even though I secretly longed for it, I wasn’t looking forward to.

I walked past her, she walked past me.

Those metre and a half between us felt wider than the universe, and the space between us was filled with a silence so loud that it drowned out every sound around us, however loud it was. That moment really was just a moment, and it was enough to shut down all my vital functions and simply clear the way for my dear hormones to crank up the chaos in my head even further. Our eyes met again, like every time since that summer break that year. In that millisecond I split in half, and while my lower half mechanically keeps walking on, the upper part freezes, the brain locks up, and the words that were ready to leave my mouth suddenly become too heavy to say, and the person I’m talking to has to face that famous: “uhhh…”, which, almost as a rule, shows up when someone loses the thread of whatever they’re going on about. It all happened too fast, too fast for any kind of reaction, any clever thought that would explain something or at least draw attention away from this absolutely and definitely awkward moment. Most of the rest of the time, in this long day ahead of me, whenever I’m not busy talking or doing something that doesn’t require proper concentration, will probably be spent analysing what happened, when it happened and why it rattled me so much in the first place. Right, now that we’ve established how we’ll waste precious time meant for resting our brain cells, let’s move on, step by step down a hallway packed with students who are rushing somewhere and see fit to shove their way through and push everyone around them.

The toilet door comes into view, dirty green, behind which a white cloud of smoke waits patiently, one that put down roots there long ago and has no intention of moving because it really likes it there. I walk past a few fans of tobacco smoke and the wrestling match with the liquid soap dispenser begins; after 2-3 vigorous presses I squeezed a bit of it out and finally washed my hands. I think I’ve become paranoid about how clean my hands are, I don’t know why, but I have this feeling that some kind of grime keeps settling on them, layer by layer, and it just makes me perform this personal hygiene operation often. A brief feeling of relief follows and I’m back on the road to the classroom, where another 45 minutes will be spent preparing better for new quizzes, the ones yet to be invented.

Lessons go by, some faster, some slower, but they go by… Finally. Although actually very irritating, on these occasions dear and lovely, a tiny bell rings out, heroically resisting a machine-gun attack from an even tinier hammer. Having packed up properly, I head home, tired but with a faint smile on my face.

The way home isn’t long, but it demands an alertness that runs away from me with every step.

After a light lunch I go upstairs, turn on the radio, the usual station, and slowly sink into some much-needed sleep. When I nap in the afternoon, happily, I don’t dream, so I don’t have the problem of disjointed dreams and confusing events that can feel pretty real, real enough to give me a bad fresh start for the rest of the day. In a story much like the morning one, I wake up and don’t want to, but I have to, because nothing gets done by itself, I mean, as Kazo from the popular series “Bitange i princeze” would say: “Let’s be real.”, then it wouldn’t be interesting.

I go to study and right from the start I can see it’s not happening. Devastating, but there it is: the urge to use the computer, the internet to be exact, is too strong to resist, so this activity, planned for half an hour, eats up at least an hour or even two, because something keeps pulling you to click just once more, and so on until I notice the little digital clock in the corner of the screen telling me that 3 hours have just gone by and that I still have English class to go to, not to mention trying to get to bed earlier to be better rested for the next day. All this deep pondering was cut short when my gaze collided with the guitar, which was begging for a hug and practically lifting itself up and flying into my hands.

I’ve still got a few minutes.

Suddenly, a flood of songs learned long ago pours onto the strings of the dusty guitar, letting out almost-good-enough tones from bits of songs that really heal me and fill me with some unusual energy. At “a minute to 12” I set off for English, I arrive last but that doesn’t bother me because I know what’s waiting for me. Dark brown tables and burgundy red chairs, which have withstood the strain of all kinds of body masses and are still sturdy enough to allow gentle rocking back and forth on their back legs, two glass bowls full of pretzels and fish crackers, lots of books, undone tests, tests never listened to and unfinished lessons, all neatly packed into a room of an attic flat in a building that looks like a matchbox.

First up is the homework from last class. That’s roughly a fair of excuses, that is, sentences thought up well in advance that are supposed to explain how nobody in the group had time to work on the tests that are essential to our knowledge of English, and by not doing our homework we show how interested we are in that English class and how it makes no sense for them to take 300 euros a year from us while we do nothing.

An hour has gone by, half an hour to go, it really dragged on…

Finally, the end of class. After a quick reminder to do the homework that didn’t get done last time, or a new one being assigned, I leave the matchbox and slowly make my way home. On the way, a few more topics get worked through, which adds to the ritual of unwinding from the class just before.

Finally getting home, which I could barely wait for, and the first step into the warm hallway fill me with a feeling of relief.

A brief encounter with the computer, a collision with the bathtub, and I’m already in bed, tired and fed up with today, and I meant to write one more song, but all that came out was this.