Anarky
08-13-2005, 07:04 PM
Nothing really moving or important, but I feel it's worth being told.
Thoughts of a twisted mind 04: Saint City lowlife
I sit in the train, just finished work, reading my book. I start to think about the city I’m about to see once again. I have spent every day during the last four years here, in this city. However I haven’t lived there, but a large part of my life was in the city the English-speaking here call Saint City. Saint City, my city… my pub is there, my friends are there, my favourite ladies behind the bar are there.
I get out of the train and I meet Oli. He’s been homeless for as long as I’ve known him. We shake hands, exchange a few words, sorry no change for him today. People look at us, but I don’t care too much. He shows me a tired smile as I walk away and tell him to take care of himself. I feel sorry for this guy, after his apprenticeship he didn’t find a job, hoped to get a job for a long time, abandoned hope, got kicked out by his parents and sort of totally lost it. No money, no home, no emotions backing him up.
I walk down to the tunnel which connects the platforms with the main station-complex. I see people walking around like cattle on their way to the butcher. Grey faces, tired, stressed out. Workers, lots of them. Some wear sweaty shirts; I guess they’ve been very busy managing things and people, not caring about who they probably fired, whose future they’ve quite possibly ruined today. I see dirty hands, dirty formerly blue clothes, the people working in production, the people actually doing work one can touch. As many differences as they all claim to have from each other, they have one thing in common: Tired, grey faces.
I get up where life pulsates. This is why a city lives, it all moves. This is the place where people of all origins walk around, passing by each other, bumping into each other from time to time. I could watch that scenery for hours. But I don’t I make my way through the people, watching them, you never know, you might see something interesting. I get to the streets, see the big black/white/red busses almost running people over, tourists looking for or at something I have seen a long time ago. There’s nothing that impresses me here anymore. But for some reason, I keep coming back. Back to this place which residents call a dirty pile of trash. Lots of things are going wrong here, but none of that really matters right now.
I walk through one of the more colourful streets of the city and I can see it from far away, the place where I was heading to in the first place. A pub, I am about to drink my daily beer (sometimes it’s a Strongbow, but who cares). There are usually the same people around, we all have each other’s cell numbers, but we don’t bother. Either some of us show up, or they don’t. I go in, the smell of smoke and old air hits my face. S. stands there, sees me and greets me with the usual three kisses on the cheek and that smile of hers. It can totally disarm you within seconds. C., The other waitress is sitting in the corner, reading in some book. She lifts her head up, greets me with a nod and goes back to her book. She’s going to be a doctor of some sort someday, but when she’s in the pub, she’s a waitress, usually showing a lot of cleavage, pleasing the horny little perverts that walk around on weekends. But on weekdays, when she’s the student, she wears expensive suits and very expensive shoes. She doesn’t know, some know what she usually look like, or she doesn’t care. S. gets my beer, puts it on the table and goes off to the kitchen. They’re frying something in there, the whole pub can smell it. I ask C. how her day was, she replies with the answer I always gave back in the day, back then when I was a student. She copied the reply from me someday.
A guy walks in; I know who it is, just by the sound of his shoes. He’s wearing an old t-shirt where he ripped the sleeves off, his old army boots and some. He takes a seat next to me, gets his share of S.’s kisses and asks me how my day was. Eating fries I tell him about how I got up and S. remarks that I look rather dirty today. I tell her of my new job, she smiles. I smile back. She takes off. We talk about daily life, work, bills, the usual. Same old, same old… good times.
S. joins in from time to times. We are all no older than 25, C. could be older but no one asked her so far, but we all have that tired look on our faces. Some of us look older than others, some remained quite young, but we all don’t look our age. Sooner or later we leave, one beer and a plate of fries, that’s how it always goes.
On weekends it’s different, we still frequent the usual places, but it’s like we’re in a totally different. No Oli, no more grey faces. Lots of girls, not older than 15 showing a lot of skin, trying not to fall over on the expensive high heels. Lots of metrosexual boys, trying to impress the skin-showing girls by posing for them, seeming cooler than cool. In the tunnel, there is a mixture of various perfumes in the air. It is the time, when the people go out. Gangstaz looking for something but certainly looking dangerous and the whole city seems more aggressive as a whole. S. stills gives me the usual kisses on the cheek and I get the same drink as I always do. The music is louder and some wannabe rebellious people squirm around in the pub. Students who are trying to be as different as possible without really drawing attention to themselves and they go after their usual business; drooling at C. Despite the louder music everyone can hear the police sirens going off more often than usual. Sometimes the patrol car rushes by the pub, sometimes we just hear it. “Nothing but a bigger brawl”, we think. The punks are still sitting in the same places, Nazis hanging out and screaming paroles the later the evening gets. We can hear them from far away between then songs. Everywhere cheap Hip Hop, the metrosexuals and the half naked are roaming the street like an undead, consume-addicted horde on the lookout for the next fad. The older children try to imitate the famous “cruising” which really is idiotic, when you don’t even have a mile to cruise around.
At two or three am I say goodbye to the two barmaids and I go home.
Bottom line is: This time, I have nothing to be upset about, this time it’s just a sort of love letter to “my” city. It shouldn’t change, it might be boring, dirty and nobody might give a **** about Oli and his junkie-buddies. But please, Saint City, don’t change.
Thoughts of a twisted mind 04: Saint City lowlife
I sit in the train, just finished work, reading my book. I start to think about the city I’m about to see once again. I have spent every day during the last four years here, in this city. However I haven’t lived there, but a large part of my life was in the city the English-speaking here call Saint City. Saint City, my city… my pub is there, my friends are there, my favourite ladies behind the bar are there.
I get out of the train and I meet Oli. He’s been homeless for as long as I’ve known him. We shake hands, exchange a few words, sorry no change for him today. People look at us, but I don’t care too much. He shows me a tired smile as I walk away and tell him to take care of himself. I feel sorry for this guy, after his apprenticeship he didn’t find a job, hoped to get a job for a long time, abandoned hope, got kicked out by his parents and sort of totally lost it. No money, no home, no emotions backing him up.
I walk down to the tunnel which connects the platforms with the main station-complex. I see people walking around like cattle on their way to the butcher. Grey faces, tired, stressed out. Workers, lots of them. Some wear sweaty shirts; I guess they’ve been very busy managing things and people, not caring about who they probably fired, whose future they’ve quite possibly ruined today. I see dirty hands, dirty formerly blue clothes, the people working in production, the people actually doing work one can touch. As many differences as they all claim to have from each other, they have one thing in common: Tired, grey faces.
I get up where life pulsates. This is why a city lives, it all moves. This is the place where people of all origins walk around, passing by each other, bumping into each other from time to time. I could watch that scenery for hours. But I don’t I make my way through the people, watching them, you never know, you might see something interesting. I get to the streets, see the big black/white/red busses almost running people over, tourists looking for or at something I have seen a long time ago. There’s nothing that impresses me here anymore. But for some reason, I keep coming back. Back to this place which residents call a dirty pile of trash. Lots of things are going wrong here, but none of that really matters right now.
I walk through one of the more colourful streets of the city and I can see it from far away, the place where I was heading to in the first place. A pub, I am about to drink my daily beer (sometimes it’s a Strongbow, but who cares). There are usually the same people around, we all have each other’s cell numbers, but we don’t bother. Either some of us show up, or they don’t. I go in, the smell of smoke and old air hits my face. S. stands there, sees me and greets me with the usual three kisses on the cheek and that smile of hers. It can totally disarm you within seconds. C., The other waitress is sitting in the corner, reading in some book. She lifts her head up, greets me with a nod and goes back to her book. She’s going to be a doctor of some sort someday, but when she’s in the pub, she’s a waitress, usually showing a lot of cleavage, pleasing the horny little perverts that walk around on weekends. But on weekdays, when she’s the student, she wears expensive suits and very expensive shoes. She doesn’t know, some know what she usually look like, or she doesn’t care. S. gets my beer, puts it on the table and goes off to the kitchen. They’re frying something in there, the whole pub can smell it. I ask C. how her day was, she replies with the answer I always gave back in the day, back then when I was a student. She copied the reply from me someday.
A guy walks in; I know who it is, just by the sound of his shoes. He’s wearing an old t-shirt where he ripped the sleeves off, his old army boots and some. He takes a seat next to me, gets his share of S.’s kisses and asks me how my day was. Eating fries I tell him about how I got up and S. remarks that I look rather dirty today. I tell her of my new job, she smiles. I smile back. She takes off. We talk about daily life, work, bills, the usual. Same old, same old… good times.
S. joins in from time to times. We are all no older than 25, C. could be older but no one asked her so far, but we all have that tired look on our faces. Some of us look older than others, some remained quite young, but we all don’t look our age. Sooner or later we leave, one beer and a plate of fries, that’s how it always goes.
On weekends it’s different, we still frequent the usual places, but it’s like we’re in a totally different. No Oli, no more grey faces. Lots of girls, not older than 15 showing a lot of skin, trying not to fall over on the expensive high heels. Lots of metrosexual boys, trying to impress the skin-showing girls by posing for them, seeming cooler than cool. In the tunnel, there is a mixture of various perfumes in the air. It is the time, when the people go out. Gangstaz looking for something but certainly looking dangerous and the whole city seems more aggressive as a whole. S. stills gives me the usual kisses on the cheek and I get the same drink as I always do. The music is louder and some wannabe rebellious people squirm around in the pub. Students who are trying to be as different as possible without really drawing attention to themselves and they go after their usual business; drooling at C. Despite the louder music everyone can hear the police sirens going off more often than usual. Sometimes the patrol car rushes by the pub, sometimes we just hear it. “Nothing but a bigger brawl”, we think. The punks are still sitting in the same places, Nazis hanging out and screaming paroles the later the evening gets. We can hear them from far away between then songs. Everywhere cheap Hip Hop, the metrosexuals and the half naked are roaming the street like an undead, consume-addicted horde on the lookout for the next fad. The older children try to imitate the famous “cruising” which really is idiotic, when you don’t even have a mile to cruise around.
At two or three am I say goodbye to the two barmaids and I go home.
Bottom line is: This time, I have nothing to be upset about, this time it’s just a sort of love letter to “my” city. It shouldn’t change, it might be boring, dirty and nobody might give a **** about Oli and his junkie-buddies. But please, Saint City, don’t change.