Sundays like barbed wire

Completely unprepared I stumbled into my past when I went for a walk that Sunday afternoon. It was the weather, the light, the lack of busy people, the silence that pushed memories of long Sundays of my early teenage years into my mind.

Adults a.k.a. old people, everybody over the age of twenty-one, perhaps twenty, some people age young, wearing white shirts, ties and beige coloured jumpers, drinking coffee and eating cake, oblivious of how ridiculous they appeared. Dreary. Neat haircuts and cheap cologne. The smell of everything I did not want to become.

Probing questions. You want to go out? Where do you want to go? Why? Who is Anton, Xandl, Franky? What do you want to do? What do you want to do that for? Why? Why?

Monosyllabic answers, just don’t mention Lisa, Eva or Monika now. Would only lead to more questions. Hope the outline of the packet of cigarettes won’t show through my clothes. Adults are born old.

Of course you can go out, you know that, we only want to know with whom and where and why.

Silence.

Sometimes you are so obstinate. No, I just do not want to tell you – anything, ever. My life, my secrets, my experiences. Teenagers need privacy. No privacy on Sundays because the adults have too much time to ask questions.

No-go small-town cafés, because they are populated by aged women in hats or drunks on Sundays. Drunks are okay, though, but not on Sundays when they play respectability. The pinball hall closed and the little inn in the cellar, where they are happy to take your under-age money, only to give you food poisoning with their fish-filled rolls.

Restrictions. No mobile phones, no computers, no text messages and no e-mails. No transport.

Sundays like barbed wire. Tristesse.

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