6

When my school year was over dads usually took me to one of two places for summer vacation: my paternal grandmother’s villa in the suburbs or the hometown of my mother in the country. I had never in my life been taken to beach resorts: only after finishing school I first saw the sea. With palm trees and other exotic pieces of southern nature I got acquainted even later. Who knows, maybe that’s why I have never been able to truly love the South or make it a piece of my world even though I longed for it as a child. I used to draw the sea and palm trees according to my imagination, that is, different from reality. The sea in my drawings looked like many little sine waves (kids usually add to them a ship with a triangle sale), and the palm leaves like daisy petals. After hearing out my classmates’ boastful stories about spending their holiday at the beach I whimpered and pestered my parents to take me to the beach, too. And every time I was fobbed off - they just didn’t seem to give a toss.

As the saying goes, the only thing worse than a dream unfulfilled is a dream fulfilled in the wrong time. So it happened to me. My beach dream had finally been fulfilled too late when I didn’t want it anymore.

Meanwhile, in my teenagerhood, I didn’t have much choice for my holiday. There were only two options: the suburbs and the country. Of two evils choose the lesser; and I would have chosen the suburbs if I had had the right to choose. I was never asked where I’d prefer to spend my summer holiday; I was just told to go to the suburbs and stay there until July; then in July when my parents had their time off from work, they picked me up and took me to the country with them for four weeks. Then, in August, when their leave was over, they brought me back to my grandma’s villa. I hated to waste a whole July - the best summer month away in the boondocks, and I had my reasons for it. So, every time I was taken there against my will, with yelling and fighting. I tried in vain to break free, kicking and screaming at the top of my lungs: “Let go, you idiot m***********s! I’m not going to your s****y country!!!” In vain I balked and clutched at shrubs and bushes when being dragged to the car; I have always been too frail, especially as a kid, so I was pretty easy to be twisted and forced into a car.

In the country I languished terribly; the place was a real dump in the middle of nowhere. The town was named Vyshvirka which translates as “Dumpsville”. One couldn’t think of a better name for that godforsaken hellhole. The very sight of its shabby unpainted wooden huts in the middle of a swamp depressed me and drenched me deep in sadness. There was absolutely nothing to do there; I tried not to interact much with the locals. Depraved, vulgar and extremely rude, the country teenagers repulsed me to my core.

The girls, Irinka and Irinka (the most popular female name over there was Irinka) were a year younger than myself. Their thirteen-year-old age notwithstanding, they spoke foul language; cursed in their husky voices, and you can bet your sweet patootie they knew firsthand all about sex. They would dress and paint provocatively, like real w****s. The more vulgar looked their louboutins caked in manure, bright polish on their dirty fingernails and tons of concealer they’d been trying to cover just as dirty abrasions on their faces with. I still clearly remember the strong smell of their patchouli mixed with manure, moonshine and Prima cigarettes - that distinctive aroma of ”Vyshvirka gals”.

The main entertainment in town was the nightclub gathering all the cream of Vyshvirka’s society. Young folks used to hang around the club house inside which there was low dubstep blasting from the stereos and an absolutely empty dance floor. The drunk country guys groped the screeching gals’ b***s - they would call it the English buzzword “flirt”. Wherein they all smoked like chimneys cheap cigarettes, drank cloudy moonshine. Some unexperienced youngsters would get overdrunk and puke on the nightclub walls; then, with their pants pissed, they would conk out right on the ground.

I really disliked those filthy hangouts; their lewd way of speaking rife with most disgusting expletives would make my ears bleed. But I couldn’t escape it anyway; to refuse to go out with them put me at risk of a big trouble. Conflicting with the locals was just hazardous to my life.

The locals, though, didn’t like me either. The guys in Vyshvirka had also given me a moniker - Chinese. Probably they’d picked it because of my narrow eyes, very conspicuous in their European-like background.

“Hey, are ya’ll city folks jus’ as dumb?” they would ask me straightforwardly.

Such “positive” communication would leave me with a really bad taste in my mouth. Yet it wasn’t the worst thing. One night some of them put burdocks in my hair - they had to be cut out with scissors. As a result my hair was a mess making me look like something the cat dragged in.

To make it short, I had my reasons to hate the country just as badly as I hated my home city.

Reviews

[emmajoygreen]

First off I was appalled at your behaviour and language in this chapter - finely and 'academically creatried as it is, but gradually, in a corrupted manner, am beginning to understand how damned you felt, nothing done FOR you but TO you.. hardly a wise way of inspiring a youngster to behave with a touch of self respect, pride.. call it what you like..

You are appearing to be an already bruised flower being surrounded by poisonous weeds. Terrible. Am I the only person willingly to feel sad for you?

Will return to read more.. Olivia. I applaud your writing's drama..