13 is an Utopia

Ya znaju tri slova, tri maternih slova.

That's all I can say in russian along with the three words, the three swear words, which seem to be stuck in my head, I flip through my dad's iPod, the song starting to play, as I try to translate it with my sucky russian as cyrillic words seem to stare at me, asking me why had I stopped learning, my eyes stuck on the screen and not the green hills around, which seem to make an attempt at swallowing the car. My parents stuck in an awkward conversation, as dad had never mentioned that he wanted to play golf causing a look of surprise from my mother.

The hills are huge, all colours bursting with some lame animal living the days they are given, as I wonder what if we are the dumb ones, as we try to blow ourselves up.

I expect him to swear in russian, as he sometimes does despite the lack of love towards his hometown and everything in general, the nostalgia barely filling up his thoughts, besides those few songs and now gone russian accent and over usage of english words as he talks to his parents. I remember how he had asked them back in his school days, as he recalls for them to talk in english, no matter how bad it was.

A castle seen from the hills, as I wonder what would there be inside and it seems to relax me, soothing the homesick, as I feel at least some hint of humanity and life rather than grass chewing animals.

My dad's russian, my mother from the same country as I am from,the one which surrounds us, the one we all live in, friendly, holding hands, eating long forgotten meat pies and singing Meat Is Murder because we enjoy The Smiths but had never gotten the lyrics.

Just because my name is Sidney, I'm no Australian, think who do you compare yourself with, I do not live in Australia and the hints I have given might be weak, it wouldn't be as cold, oh, wait it's winter there, but despite the advantage of the last summer month, it's quite cold and my hoodie feels like an ice brick with the heavy cloud waiting to fall with the light yellow cracks and the transparent rays, as I want to wrap myself up in something plaid, as I feel some urge to see an overuse, but I barely care about it, falling into sleep out of boredom and the home feeling chocking me hard and my parents never were there. When they met each other it was because of a friend who had just come from Australia, Sydney and because of that my name was born with the locks of blonde my mum dyes into brown, because she doesn't feel blonde.

I wonder if my parents actually sat with me sleeping, as I didn't scream much, look around and concentrate on one toy, as if I'd be simply thinking, then I'd get called and I'd be pissed and scream.

I wonder what it actually felt like when they saw me screaming for the first time with the gulp of air, as they sat wondering what name should their son inherit, but then maybe they laughed about it, calling me Sidney and dot. I was amazed by my parent's logic, so I could have been a Rome, Paris, London and any city they guy could've been in?

Was that it, close your eyes and choose the location, was that why people were obsessed with Paris, to name their kids Paris Hilton?

My face actually resembles a postcard from some post-soviet country, as I'd stand laughing, introducing some tourism which my country lacked, only my accent and words not there. I can barely speak and write in pauses, forgetting cyrillic letters. People expect me to be some Alexander, Volodimir or Dimitri, but nothing not even an Anatoly, which my dad is. But my dad goes by Tony now, a nickname he'd be given back in school, due to his hidden determination. The desire to escape along with a few other friends, those who wanted made it, even if they were idle.

As far as I know he just went away after everything broke down, he says everything was broken there already and there was nothing to break, just the cracks became seen, as there were things to compare to. I still see my grandparents from dad's side. My father never goes back, but he has some tracks stuck there firmly in his iPod, the only thoughts of regret would be a loud word, but something which would cause a smile, saying that he felt a desire to find the language somewhere, but everything was pompous, besides several songs scattered now between britpop,waiting to be deleted.

Every story you listen the russian immigrates marry other Russians and they stick together praising the country they had chosen to leave, my dad has quite an amount of friends, but all of them with their russian either lost or developing with the homesick and constant nostalgia.

I look up and I see my dad look at me with a big smile, as his dark eyes look further, he looks at the cows which stand still until they get erased after a few minutes and those which could cross the road, but don't, speaking up to the car's colour.

I look up, flicking through.

I wonder as I feel my phone vibrate along with the awaiting bill in a month as my parents just received one, muttering that I was melting and that in their age their tongues were in their own mouthes, but then they caught a glimpse of Zane as he walked past phone against ear, asking them if they wanted pizza. He had been over and all were lazy enough to cook, as my parents had to be gone in a while, as we had planned a movie night. They still couldn't help but look at Zane with slight worry, what if their own son had something stashed as well, waiting for the closet doors to unlock.

Zane is gay.

I remember my parents choked when they got that answer as they asked if my best friend had a big breasted girlfriend.

It were back when he had called himself still in the middle, as he didn't get understood with a row of questions if he hated girls, how did it feel, why weren't he locked and how come could he look into his parent's eyes after all they've done.

I wouldn't say that it affected him much, after he opened up, but until he did, he'd hear how he wasn't a man if he let himself be treated like a woman.

I on the other hand had a big breasted girlfriend.

What's wrong with having something else to cuddle against? It's not that I like her because of that, just because she got breasts first, as other continued to stuck cotton in their mother's bras to jump during discos and pray that no twelve year old will stuck his fingers inside to stroke the softness of his wet dream, while the rest of the girls look as if they are still in kindergarden, physically and mentally, so what if my eyes wonder down and she has to repeat my name several times?

Ok, so I was with her, I've been friends with her and then over the summer she grows everywhere, she's taller, her hair shorter than longer than dreams of dying and piercings and the first thoughts of love come out from each other's lips. It's a feeling I cannot describe, her eyes drawn in my head with her touch. It's not like I want to trace everywhere where she had grown and yes, I'd still love her if she was flat chested.

If she were a man?

I'm not gay, but in theory, I guess I would.

Now, would she go lesbian with me?

Oh, lesbians.

Cover me in chocolate and throw me to the lesbians.

Oh, daydreams. Too hot, ok, I just took off my hoodie.

I wonder if Alene would, I'm not the only guy imagining his girlfriend with another girl doing everything I'd do right and oh, I'm there with a camera and pouring honey all over them and feeding them strawberries.

"Sidney?"

I love her, I text her that. I ignore mum. I get blamed for being a teenager.

"Sidney?"


Oh, sexism, I raise my head to answer dad.

Now it's that in his deep voice, the russian accent long gone as if it were the relation long lost. As if it were some sort of first girlfriend because you have to know how it's like to kiss a girl. I glance at them both, shrugging wondering what is wrong with my girlfriend, but we never called each other that, as we'd get long glances after a few kisses on the cheek in the morning or fine, a long make-out session in the corridor, as teachers would walk past and call our parents. Alene, her name shared with Kerouac's short love interest, maybe I was Kerouac now, with no rights, no, Sidney, you are dating, I've been sticking that in my head. Ok, breathe. She had her nose in a book before, chewing on an apple before I had met her, before I met her, I remember how I used to walk past with a broken nose, maybe due to some phrase Zane had said to piss someone off and I'd say a broken and quiet 'yeah' only with a determinate facial expression.

She'd sit on a bench, a can of coke besides her, hair in a braid, then she cut it off as she turned thirteen, her hair pitch black and white t-shirts with different authors on it as she'd hum Blur tunes.

I told her Oasis were better, she disagreed calling them the biggest assholes in the country.

I called her a bitch.

I was ten, alright? It's a miracle that I didn't garb hold of her and didn't throw her into the fountain in front of the school.

As that had been a month when I had not only considered Noel as a genius, but actually found myself quoting him as Chris Martin was a geography teacher, I'd even agree now, really, but then I'd just get into a few fights, a cut under my eye as my mother would ask what were I doing and my dad showing how to punch and block, causing my mum to ask if he also did that back at his own school days, dad shook his head, saying that he just beat up girls with books he read.

Looking at people's parents I tend to think that their lives were dull and they ask children about their, wondering what they had lost.

My mum told her mum and they laughed, as she stood reading Burroughs, with both of us behind their backs, still showing tongues because it was a cool thing to do and Alene had walked away, saying that hers was longer. I told her to fuck off, which she said was impolite, whatever, if you play dirty you win, so I just did.

She came next day and asked Zane if he were gay, that she had read a book and she told him about it, he shrugged, quickly denying but glancing at a blonde football player and saying hi to him in the meantime, as he barely knew the younger kid, but replied anyway, earning a small grin to wear for the rest of the day.

Alene asked me afterwards, I asked why was she asking that, she shrugged, blaming the author and her head in a new book. I called her weird, while she said that everyone had seemed gay to her or muscular lesbians,as others should die off, as they were never described.

I was 11.

Zane woke me up at midnight, before Halloween that year, when Alene meant nothing and I thought that all women were attractive, I'd say that they were sexy, a word I overheard the older students say and I asked what it meant getting my first Sex Ed lesson, as I struggled back and told Zane.

He asked what if there were two guys or two girls. I shrugged, as I remembered the two lesbians in our school, as all the guys in our grade seemed to stare then the phone era came with porn videos to watch instead of geography and the whole sending every one pictures and virus phobia. Of course they were filmed, only to do as much that it got boring, daily and new lesbians were wanted up to the point that I wondered when a poster searching for hot two girls would be plastered on every single wall instead of calling people whores and sluts or plain gays. They both weren't good looking it was simply because of the a lesbian is a lesbian and this was the real thing, free and you could touch it, but no one did, one guy did and they stopped it, the seconds and minutes lost now and then. I tried to picture the girls, I told him my thoughts, lingering into details, but Zane yawned and I asked him if my story telling wasn't as explicit, he said that it was.

How was it done between men?

He had asked, now that the question was asked, aloud and the culprit and wonderer was located, he tried to look straight at me, after all, I had known him for eternity. After all, death and birth seemed both as far away.

Was this his birth, as the first thoughts were spoken aloud?

I stared at him, saying that it were all masturbation really, just someone does it for you, no matter what gender, I tried to tell everything I thought at ten, the innocence now gone and the flag of vanity risen above my head with a matching purple t-shirt it's an act to please yourself. He smirked, looking down, tying his shoelaces. He always tied them with care, bangs tickling his eyelashes and I tried to find freckles as I seemed to have a few, I tended to believe that three because I had liked the number three. He always wore dark coloured Converse as far as I remember him only at five he had a pair of red coloured ones, given by his father.

Zane was twelve then.

I believed in no family bond, because if we'd be strangers, the ones who we call family we would never even talk, we just have a bond we believe that with all the kids saving the marriage, the only bond which exists and is strong is the one we create ourselves, together, both, apart, holding hands with no vows coming out of the mouth as a new life is born and destroy over melancholy, jealousy and stupidity.

I believed in my bond with Zane and if he were a girl, I would be afraid to throw the cobweb of family over us, as surely then after the vows nothing would follow with the routine that we had done everything with three kids, never willing to adopt, as then we'd be lying to ourselves, told by the female.

The female would tell lies, see betrayal, as I think now, the last days of thirteen the gap closing as I have no idea what fourteen will be like and I seem to hold onto the three dearly, as if it were my life, maybe our age is our life. Maybe we die and get reborn every year.

It was halloween, he had stolen his mum's make up and we both dressed as Britney and Christina for the hell of it. No competition and no boyfriend with top sales to fight over. Zane's lips didn't seem keen to be painted red and he kept licking them off, as his cheeks blushed as he kept telling that the idea was insane.

Back when Zane was six, there was some child actor he liked with big blue eyes, a bit older let's say he was ten and Zane asked his father, I'm mixing idetails, even before that me and Zane were stuck home really late at night and the movie was about two glam rock stars, we didn't know the name, but now we both do. Velvet Goldmine.

Zane sat as if he were between them, in their kiss. He called it beautiful.

It's Zane favourite movie, as he turns it on sometimes, as he'd sit on the floor, hug his legs and watch singing the songs and pressing pause one minute before the kiss, to savor the last glances before the confession was there.

He told his dad about the movie.

People are homophobic, believe in naivety that boys should fuck girls and only. The more, the better. I had a friend who tend to have many boys and she was called a whore, over twenty, she meant it and has a nice job, mum's old school friend, try saying that to her face and you'll lose all and the no is a no. He earned a stare and he asked if he could marry the blonde, back when you believe that marriage is holly.

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13 is an Utopia