days of innocence

I don't think anyone has ever experienced such boredom when you're dragged by your neck to a summer house with your grandparents with literally no one around besides other pensioners. As age progressed it would be less boring, because I knew what to expect and I would just drag more and more books with me and I'd know that I should really spend all the time on the beach with a book, because the heat would turn out to be far too much, so it would be a bit beneficial to actually dip into the waters.

I could hear regret even in my grandparent's voice because I would imagine it everywhere, even in the birds which were caught in the bushes, looking for something. I don't think anyone wanted to take care of me as a child as it were simply far too annoying, I would just write on tiles how much I had wanted to go home. Maybe with age, when I'm old I would start thinking of it as something nostalgic, but when you're in your older teenage years still it seems so far away that the thoughts barely cross more than small ripples.

With age, I would just refuge in the house, reading, not feeling too confident with classmates and knowing that my friends were all I've had. And now without them, I just felt completely bare. But it seemed like a good feeling to be left alone, but was it really? It felt like balancing on a knife of pure boredom and isolation, but at the same time I was kind of looking forward to it. The only non-pensioner was a boy called Miles who I had rarely seen, because his parents would take him elsewhere while mine saw the need to for me to socialize with my grandparents for a month, then we would go elsewhere. I didn't even know what the plans were for this year. All I had known is that one of the three summer months is how I would be spending it.

The house was two floored, the second taken half by my grandparents with their own stuff and the other was stuffed with really old toys which I had used when I was young. Sometimes I would just take them out of the closets and stare at them, wondering how did it happen that the years would stay still in such a place with the colour of the cars being exactly just as I would remember.

I wanted to rest, but what was resting if travelling consisted of seeing cities eventually and I would bathe in a lake this whole month? So what was this relaxing time people had spoken of so fondly?

The first floor was just filled with the kitchen and bedrooms with posters of artists I no longer cared about, but they were left there to spy on all of us during our sleep. I would dream that when I'd sleep as a child they would fly around, Peter Pan style, just for a brief while, until I would roll onto the other side.

Miles' grandparents were friends with my own grandparents, so I wondered how much had he changed and if he would be dragged this year as well. I couldn't help but think what was there in common and what would he be into and if I would even be able to hold a conversation with him which went surely beyond cars and trucks since that's what we discussed as children or would just silently both play with play doh. I would hear my grandmother speak about Miles as I helped her unpack all the food we'd need for the week, before driving out to get even more groceries in the small city nearby which literally just had a few food stores. Even they were untouched when it came to age, only some would deem trendy and change their signs after a few years or there had been an internet cafe which opened up with many blokes playing Counter Strike in there just like anywhere else.

It was around evening but it was still rather bright, when I'm guessing Miles' own boredom got to him and he decided to show up from above the hill, knocking on our fence and being all polite, as I just sat on one of the benches, reading some summer school homework, figured that boring could be cured with more boredom.

He showed up now with a Beatles mop of hair, which made me question whether he had known what he was doing as I gave him a brief wave. Thankfully none of us humiliated ourselves by asking if it were okay to play together at this late hour. I watched him, putting my Virginia Woolf aside, which was so boring that I couldn't get past the few pages, but at least it wasn't rereading Catcher in the Rye like I had to during the school year. He flip-flopped his way towards me, eyeing the book, as gran proceeded to tend the roses, she had been taken care of nearly all day along with other flowers whose name I had no idea and no matter how much interest I had shown, I would never recall or would confuse a dandelion with a peon.

“Hey, Al.” Miles said, his hands in his shorts, looking around to see how flowery the whole garden and territory had become. I followed his gaze, letting it sink in even if I had been having this view as the only thing accessible to me the whole day. I greeted him back, letting a ghostly silence creep between us. I saw gran from the corner of my eye look at her watch.

“Why don't you boys have a quick walk to the lake? Even if it's a bit late, it should still be very pleasant.” She had said, because there was literally no other entertainment for us to do besides reading, walking and watching television or rather the few channels it would catch. Miles thanked her for the very predictable idea, as I stood up, following the slightly taller boy.

I don't think jungle would do justice if I were to describe how badly overgrown the grass is. Granddad would simply bring a scythe to make his way through, but this year thankfully someone else has done the dignity of torturing us less, as we made our way slowly to the lake and quietly too. We lived in the same city, but outside summer we would never really talk, since our only glue had been boredom during the summer days where we would unite. I hadn't seen Miles in a few years, so surely we had something to talk about, but we both seemed too shy to start a conversation. He just walked in front of me, so I ended up staring at his back far too much.

“So how's everything been?” Maybe I should've asked him how long has it been that he's been locked up in this disaster and what solution had he found to cure himself from pure boredom. Miles turned around and figured that the road was getting wide enough for both of us to walk together. He seemed to age of course, in the past five or so years that I hadn't seen him and it's not that he had gotten different, there was less of a childish air around him and I could see that he had been just as bored. I don't think I had any other doubt in why he had gone to see me. He just like me felt a bit confused with all these years passing, at least that's how I had decided to picture him further in my head and try to do a connection.

“It's been good, good.” Miles paused, realizing that I hadn't heard him in the past five years, so I hadn't really known what good meant. “I've been playing up some guitar. I've gotten quite good at it.”

“Oh yeah?” I smile at him. My guitar playing was a bit rubbish, unlike my friend Jamie's, who convinced me to get a guitar for Christmas. “That's great, 'cause me, I'm not too good.”

“I brought my guitar with me, actually. It's a bit annoying 'cause gran always sits down to listen, even when I'm rehearsing with all the slips and stuff.” He smirks a bit lovingly, as we get out of the really tall grass and go past the sunflower fields, well, sunflower fields on one side with a pond of really loud and possibly angry frogs on the other. But the tall grass ends right after the pond does, so I don't think I ever got to see the pond properly through my entire life.

“Oh, great, then you can show me then.” I pause. “Well, if you'd like to that is.”

“I was going to say, that I can offer you some guitar lessons.” Miles turns to look at me. “You also stuck for the month, Al?”

I nod.

“Well, good, I won't have to rot the whole time myself. I've already been here for a week, mom decided that she wanted to get rid of me earlier.” Miles laughed slightly, but no trace of bitterness was there, just looked at me and shrugged, as if wondering what she had decided to go to. I heard that his mom had a new boyfriend, so maybe that had been it.

“Sorry that mine didn't get rid of me earlier. Gran had work until then, so I had to wait, I guess. Not that I was looking forward to being here, no offence.” I smile back at him.

“None taken.” Miles replied swiftly.

“But I'll take your guitar lessons for sure.” We were starting to near the lake, going uphill from the valley which had nothing other than fields, but we managed to increase our speed and by then I had realized that I didn't grab my swim trunks or anything at all and I just shooed off the thought, thinking that I would manage in my underwear. The sun still seemed to be rather ripe and up in the sky, illuminating the fields and the sunflowers which were left long ago behind. We went quiet for a bit and I felt a sense of panic, because I knew that we would spend talking the whole month because there was literally nothing else to do and we surely couldn't run out of topics yet. Plus what else would I be able to do?

Once we see the beach, Miles just turns around and grins at me.

“I'll race you.” And darts off, clearly having a head start and now he's taller than I am. I also recall gran mentioning how I should start some sport, since Miles had played football somewhere, she decided to fill me up in everything she had heard from one of her close friends, Miles' grandmother. After all, they had to gossip about their grandchildren in ease and I could imagine them both on the balcony or terrace of each place, discussing us and smiling on oh how much we've grown. So I think of that as I try to catch up with him, but as I make my way there he's already taking off his shirt and motioning for me to hurry up.

“I forgot my swim trunks.”

“Got too distracted by ol' me.” Miles mocks me, as I take off my own shorts and decide that my plain briefs would do. If I were with some gal maybe not, but with both of us just being blokes and I have no one to impress, it just seemed enough for me, at least for now where there is literally just us under the age of forty or so.

-

This came out from me whining to Callie that I want some innocent milex and specifically milex, like no love triangles, just pure milex. And I went to sleep on it and I remember how desperately I made sure to think of the plot idea a lot before I fell asleep and even pinched my nose, hoping that some random action would make me remember it xD 

I just wanted something with young milex, because I've been obsessing over listening to their first albums and b-sides. I kind of miss their innocence, well, as much as you could see of course xD I just love them a lot and I miss them at the same time. I've been obsessed with all their music, so yeah.

The idea came from me thinking about summer breaks and how I used to spend nearly a month or so in a country house, a dacha, if you must. And it's very common, nothing fancy when it comes to being eastern european or post soviet. So I kind of wanted something set there, some boredom I had experienced and there was literally like two boys I could befriend one was there one year and the other would show up every once in a while and he was a friend of my gran. Nothing ever happened between us, I only saw him when I was terribly young so please don't pair me up at age 8 okay xD, but that was enough for me to think of this plot. 

I was so bored out of my eyes that I had written on tiles that I wanted to go home and would argue to leave earlier, this was before cellphones and I'd be told to stay outside and enjoy nature instead of watching telly which would only catch a few channels, so I'd read everything I could find and that was it. Now, with life being tiring sometimes I wouldn't mind some isolation and whatnot, but hey, when you're 8 it's dreadful, but I think of it fondly and that's why I want to honor it in a story. 

This is probably one of the first stories where by saying Jamie I don't mean Jamie Hince, but Jamie Cook. This is a milex story without any additions, so enjoy it, haha xD 

I really love the innocence with it and it's really what I wanted to write, so here it is 

And I hope you'll love it as much as I do

<3

Jamie