I wanted to write that she lives just to live, but I don't think that's particularly groundbreaking. You're terrified of being banal, and that's such a lovely feeling. Besides, there aren't many things I can think of. So I'll just repeat the pattern.
My mother listens to the same melody every day. She drinks coffee to the sound of vinyl. This piece reminds me of Hawaii. Once, even in a burst of ambition, I wanted to find out what it was, but I quickly got over it. Does it matter? Only these notes matter. They're constant and everyday. Terribly bland. It's like Vivaldi writing for the Beach Boys... Pam pa ram pam pam (Sweet Jesus, how dirty the windows are at this school. Like the perpetually greasy glasses of that idiot from the Vocational School). Getting back to the melody, I think they play it on a ukulele. I wonder if you can buy them in Poland? I'd be humming to Baśka.
At that moment, that idiot from physics snatches my notebook and looks at it, walking quickly toward the desk. It's a long way away because I'm sitting in the last row. Honestly, I don't really care. First lesson would be stressful, but seventh? You're so tired you're writing nonsense about the ukulele. Nevertheless, I raise my head.
"Come on, come on." He makes an encouraging gesture. He stands up and walks away, clicking my heels. He stands with a smile on his face, which only deepens my suspicion that I'm retarded. Meanwhile, Ricardo is leafing through my notebook. He's not doing it carefully, because if he were, he'd probably notice that almost every page has a little caricature of himself.
"What's that?" A small interjection: he generally prefers circles. Apparently, drawing them indicates a desire to create his own, self-contained world. In my opinion, it stems more from the fact that I can't draw straight lines; I'm automatically left with just circles and circles. "Not only are you not attending classes, you're practically taking no notes!"
I look at him with the most blank expression possible. Maybe he'll be able to be moved by pity? Everyone has a little compassion for animals, after all. Even Hitler had dogs. Huge, bloodthirsty shepherds who ensured the purity of their masters' breed—chosen to death the prisoners in Birkenau. Jews, the chosen people, chosen by Adolf as a top-class raw material. Was soap made from them better than soap made from other people? Didn't it dry out the skin? We Slavs, we Poles, we were halfway between animals and humans. Not as flawed as Jews and not as wonderful, not as normal as Germans. The missing link in evolution.
"And tell me, what do you want to be in life? What studies will you get into with that attitude?
" "You know, I always dreamed of preserving flat surfaces..." "I'm starting, but the essence of my erudition is still ahead of us." "Unless I fail. Then I'll go to physics. There are always vacancies there. The fact that as a cleaner I'd earn half as much..."
The class cackles, and I get a drink, and with the eternal words floating behind me, "I wonder if you'll be so smart..."—the first sentence in the handbook for beginning teachers. I return to my last desk. My refuge. A place where I can almost freely reflect on the lack of ambition in my life. That's probably the main reason I'm so fucking happy with it.
Every time spring came, every time I left school, I was overcome with excitement. You know that feeling when you run your fingers through time, carefully selecting every minute? Suddenly, you find new things so precious, because when you're me, you get bored with everything that lasts longer than a moment. It was in spring that I learned to celebrate the day so as not to waste a single moment. Cognac + gasoline. That's the formula for my successful day. Suddenly, I see that the scent of roses is like the blues. Leaden heavy yet featherweight, so I could touch it with my hand. Every pebble by the road could be a god. Any object can be sacred, but not every person can love life. For that, you have to be wise. And I'm certainly not talking about intelligence supported by diplomas, rational behavior, or the idiotic talk of smart-ass slickers. This wisdom is entirely different. Laughing in the street, hitchhiking in the middle of the night, buying shoes you'll never wear. Bathe in the sea during a storm, or spend the whole day in the park lying on a bench with someone you like. Blondes are allowed anything. Canary princesses. I'd be lying if I said everyone can find life. Little gods made of roadside quartzite love only a few. Living for life.
One of my favorite moments of the day is the long break. Heaven is the long break. Not far from my school is a clothing store where Patrycja works. On the way, I buy her a nigger, a dark doughnut rolled in coconut flakes. I signal her, and we meet in the alley behind the store. We sit on the wall. There's a fast food place next door, so the smell of fries and the cigarettes we're smoking mixes into a killer cocktail. It's amazing that such a silly thing can bring me such pleasure. For a moment, I visit another dimension. My senses sharpen. Sometimes we can sit like that for fifteen minutes without a word. Sometimes it's enough for her to say, "Beautiful day." "Aha," I reply. The gray smoke blows away. The bums rummage through the trash. Patrycja is chomping on a blackberry. I drink carrot juice to keep my complexion looking good. Just the blues.
Sometimes we hit on a guy from the fast food place. He's a blond guy with brown eyes. He's cute, and we can just flirt with him. He's cool, but how can you cuddle with a guy who reeks of the subtle stench of fries?
My fifteen minutes are running out. I'd rather not go back to school. I wouldn't move at all, just wait patiently until the number of cigarettes I've smoked reaches a point where the disease begins to consume my lungs. With a disarming sense of superiority, because what more does it take to devise such a hedonistic method of suicide? I think that's called "hitting rock bottom"—dying of laziness while being utterly, joyfully satisfied.
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