The trees, the roofs, the pavements are covered with fresh white
snow, in the night it is sparkling as the fairies would have had some grand
funeral ceremony and have spilled the ashes of their queen all over the town. Adriel
tiptoes through the calm and overshadowed street of wooden houses with the only
light illuminating her road. She feels the smell of burning wood – the typical
smell of cold winter night in her hometown. She haven`t thought about this
before – this is what she was missing in the city. The sparkles are going up
from the chimneys to the cloudless and starred night sky.
She reaches the club. People are lining up or at least trying to give
the wildness of Saturday`s night a shred of structure. Some tries to join their
friends keeping a place in the queue, so the queue loses the form of line, some
teenagers without coats try to prove they have already been inside, some already
got their couples and hurriedly wriggles along outside through the line for a
cigarette as a pretext to stay together without a noise of a party and to charm
a partner. And here is a girl with a short skirt, barely hiding her tattered
pantyhose. She hysterically shouts disjoint words into the phone, her
cosmetics, washed by the cry, are all over her face, she goes straight to the
door without paying any attention to the queue, a guard stops her, asks to
leave, she tries to beat him, she falls, her head hits into the icy pavement...
Adriel finally comes in and pays for the ticket. She climbs up the
stairs, already hears the music and some nostalgic amazement overcomes her: “They
play the same songs as 7 years ago – The Killers, The Smiths, The Cure, The...“
She gets a drink, the dance floor is crowded and full of sound and movement,
people floats between the bar and the dance floor. A bit ahead she sees a girl
with whom she used to sit in the same desk during biology, wear short skirts
and irritate the boys awakening their interest in biology even more. She is
still with a short skirt, high heels, shiny clubbish T-shirt and blond hair – a
typical province girl as we would imagine. With a friendly wonder she squeezes
through people to reach Adriel: “How are you, where have you been, what are you
doing here?..“
Adriel puts her empty glass onto the bar and orders a new drink. A hand
with a bottle of lemonade joins her. Lemonade. They used to drink lemonade
while sitting on the edge of the plough. It used to be soft, warm and sunny
summer days, the space used to be filled with the violins of the
grasshoppers and the singing of birds. They are in the center of the dance floor
craziness. Boys Don`t Cry. His hands
are so masculine now... He shouts to her ear: “The floors are sticky...“ She
notices that really in fact her movement is a bit restrained by the sticky
floor, “Yeah...“ she agrees. “You know, it is the first day when I came back
here after the long time... Remember… remember the days, days with the lemonade?..“
But he doesn`t seem to hear and care, his glimpses are towards the another girl
with a typical province look as we would imagine. The girl is trying to get her
way out of the dance floor. “You know, let`s go out for some fresh air?” he
asks.
Adriel smokes her cigarette and observes the street, so lively on the
Saturday night, also as the memories are so alive in her head. Here is an old
man with a beard mumbling something under his nose and staggering through. All
town used to know him – he used to live in the outskirts, alone, just with his bear. The bear was called Justin.
They used to eat, walk, fish and go to sauna together. People were afraid of
his bear and talk about him as a stranger. But he didn`t drink and didn`t look mad back in those
days.
And there - is a shopping center, there Adriel used to go shopping with
her father on Sundays. She used to jump in into the child`s seat of the
shopping wheel, her father used to run through the shelves… She throws her
cigarette, gives a “good-bye” wink to the sunny-day-lemonade guy and enters
back inside.
Words like violence, break the silence, come crashing
in… As she was a
teenager, she used to sit on the swings, sing this song and neighbor girl used
to praise her voice. Adriel wanted to become a singer. And they used to sing
this song in this club with her first love, he kissed her right here, in this
club, the first time. They used to dance, to dream, to run away from cops
Everything sparkles with memories, as fairies would have had a grand ceremony...
She gets a new drink. A new dancing partner appears. You could have always seen
him reading in the school library. He used to follow her and bunch of her
girlfriends with a claim to analyze them. He used to ring the doorbell of her
place on Sundays just to see her without make-up. With a quick move he takes Adriel
into his arms and kisses her with a tongue.
a drunken boredom, run away, turn away, run away, turn
away, run away, no one cares, they are not reaching anything, just their
instincts to be pleased, they are just sinking here, they just cry and fall on
the ice, sticky floor, they wait in queue, wait in the club until lights go up,
until there is the last chance to get a partner for the night--- these dirty
hands
The sound of construction work behind the window wakes her up. A
drumming sound joined by the song of a bird. She is silently picking up her
clothes lying all around the room on the floor. Just not to wake a
masculine hand stretched all over the bed.
Written for the course Creativity and The Process of Writing back in JYU, 2012
