Wednesday 2nd of November 2016 Toby’s flat, Kosta Varnali, Athens
It’s never easy to find out what life expects from you. In this case life is portrayed by my mother. Today she called me again.
“Mom I can life without it. So far I haven’t called you crying in the night asking why I haven’t bought myself a washing machine.” She hesitates on the other side of the line.
“You will be amazed who useful one is, as soon as you have it.”
I drop down on the sofa and grab the bag of chips that has been there since the weekend. She hesitates again. I would like to know if she even likes me or just pretends. After all I am behaving defensively against her and I have a good reason. She is embarrassing, since I am aware of my existence. She fulfils every cliché of a mother in a comedy movie, only that I can’t laugh about it, because I am the one that’s suffering.
I feel at home in Greece, but the mountains and brass bands seems to appeal her.
The bag of chips slips through my fingers onto the ground, as she asks me a question I didn’t had an answer to last year. But this time she chooses a scenario, which will abundantly aggravate my ability to decide.
“This years Christmas we want to celebrate at grandmas, will you come too?” Christmas with the whole family is great, if it wasn’t my family. The church services get more endurable with Adulthood, because I don’t get forced to participate in the nativity play, therefore it feels like it has been exceeding in length.
Virtually I planned to celebrate with Marcos and his friends this year, but I sensed my mother would come around the corner with this question anytime soon. Too soon to my liking. That’s why I have to come up with a steady excuse.
“You know mom, I have no idea if I will have time during Christmas. You probably understand… new job and stuff.” For a short moment I thought I made her cry, because she let out a sob, then I hear her voice again at the receiver. I sink deeper into the cushion and crush the chips with my socks into tiny crumbs.
“Take good care of yourself. If anything happens, please call us. You can reach us anytime, okay? Oh, I can’t believe it, you have to deal with so many bad guys, don’t let anything get you down.” Before she can ramble on, I interject her and say goodbye.
Yes, I know I’m acting a little cold, but I am not a fan of overreacting people. There are only a few individuals that spare my nerves. Everyday I see the general community in the bus and metro, which I don’t like to describe in detail. I also don’t like it when someone is giving me advice or suggestions, it’s problematic, because this makes me think they are underestimating me.
After all my educational journey includes the elementary school and middle school in Waidhofen by the Ybbs. My mother taught me and my sister Greek before we moved to Thessaloniki, when I was 14 years old, still transferring to a different school was hard.
Highschool itself is already difficult and then there was me standing at the entrance of the 2nd Lyceum in Thessaloniki. I didn’t know anybody, nobody knew me. The little nerd from the mountains with his fake piercing on the lip.
English was the only subject I succeeded, the others would be easy too if I understood the work sheets. In every lesson I was sitting in class, the teacher was drivelling something and all of a sudden, the students opened their books and looked for partners to do a group project. Guess who got allocated by the teacher.
Though after my parents send me to a Greek course and mixing in some English words, the communication in class got steadier.
In the end I graduated high school with a good result and even learned French as a fourth language, but finding friends seemed impossible. Every classmate still had friends from elementary school. I had to leave my friends in my homeland and slowly forgot about them. In elementary school you don’t have to look for friends, they just come automatically. You play with whoever is available.
When you get older everyone is looking at the details of your personality and they only recognize the thing that can be seen from the outside, but the inner values are ignored. Honestly, I’m often thinking like this too.
Why I wanted to be a policeman? I don’t know. I believe I wanted to do something where I would be a role model, showing everyone what else I am capable to besides trigonometry and stochastics.
At the local police station, I did an internship, but as expected, I was the idiot that had to sit around and watch the people doing their work. On the last day someone grabbed me by the shoulder from behind and offered me to either do an apprenticeship here or go into vocational training in Athens. Consequential to pondering for some time I dared to take the step, moved to Athens, rented a little apartment and somehow managed to survive on my own. That was the only time where I missed my mother’s cooking.
Northwest of the city there is the Hellenic police academy. There I attended the course for high schoolers, that want to be police officers. This course was more filled than the remaining ones, probably because it was one of the rather easier methods.
Each week a whole year long I drove from my apartment in Nea Ionia to the academy, by bus naturally. I was basically living there during the week and became aware of what policemen do most of the time: Stop-and-search operations, fetch alcoholised, naked people out of their neighbour’s garden, securing accidents or arrest savaging demonstrates.
Since I am not a fan of overreacting people, as I previously said, it spoiled my expectations of this job. The actual cool things get done by the police inspectors and that’s where Marcos enters the story. He just finished his apprenticeship, when he spontaneously decided to do the educational program for high ranked police officers. Seems like he had to faced himself what was awaiting him in the usual police job. In the end everyone wants to do the job we have now, but of course not everyone can make it.
I believe he had been there for a week or so, when we coincidentally met. I was about to leave the building, on my way to the Langano Espresso Bar to get, as the name intends an Espresso, when he asks me where to get good food nearby. Since I was going the same direction anyway I accompanied him to the next diner. During this short walk he told me his entire life story und typically I wasn’t interested in it at all, until it was my turn and I told him about the doubts I had. He suggested me to just change the course. I thought it was impossible, but Marcos can perform miracles, solely by his natural charisma, which I don’t have.
Whatever he did to convince the supervisor, Sargent Cooper, to make an exception for me, I wasn’t done with my second year yet, it helped me to go forward immensely.
Today I go sleeping earlier than usual. Primetime didn’t even start, still I jump headfirst onto the mattress. The beds squeaks, as expected from a bed where someone probably made a baby in the 90s. Before I fall asleep I think about how to return the favour to Marcos, after everything he did for me. Even though he would never expect me to give anything back, I still want to do something more than just being the smartass in our team.
I almost forgot to turn off the notification sound and set the alarm to full volume. No one wants a Dejávu of today’s hectic morning.
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