I just got this photo on my email and I simply kept staring at it. The first flash was Budapest. Or some other cold city, I'm not sure. But when I glimpsed at the photo, I suddenly had a burst of feelings in my gut. Like I've been there before. Well, I have, but not when the photo was taken.
Zagreb, The Flower Square, 1957 (Author unknown to me)
It's always weird, the story with one's hometown. And how much you're capable of loving it and hating it at the same time. Heaven knows I've had a constant roller-coaster ride with mine since whenever I started caring.
I remember my mum taking me to the center when I was a kid. We'd go to the main market to pick up some groceries, take a walk along the most popular streets so that mum can do some window shopping and then take a break. I was all light-haired and light-eyed, constantly wearing brown and beige or some other earth colours. I'm holding the tram ticket in my hand like it's an ampoule of liquid gold and hopping alongside mum, taking the city in, but also being slightly aware of the fact that it's still a bit big for me.
I don't care though – I'm going for the top. Literally. The break that we're taking, it's up. At the top floor. I can see everything from there. Everything.
It's eighteen floors up or something like that, but it's the high point for me. I have a Coke, as I always used to. My mum would usually have a piece of cake. I somewhat reckon she'd rather have me have a piece as well, but I'm stuck on Coke. I think that annoyed her a bit, since I was a lively little turd – even without the Coke.
At those times the top floor of the so-called skyscraper was open and I was usually fighting the wind, making myself look a bit like Quasimodo with the huge lump of air beneath my unzipped but firmly-held sweatshirt. My mum found it funny. She rarely finds things funny nowadays. I remember her smiling a lot more.
She wasn't so stressed out back then, even with everything that was going on. Sure, she must've been a bit worried and always extra cautions taking me into the city and all, but I surely never felt it. She was relaxed and I was relaxed. The truth is, I've always been a kid who could take care of himself. I used to walk back home from kindergarten. My folks always knew where I was and what I was up to. Maybe that's why it's been getting harder ever since.
But I remember the awesome feeling of roaming the city. I couldn't have been over four or five, but I recall the awesome feeling that I'd get. I was clutching on the iron fence, trying to align both my eyes so that it didn't obstruct my view. Mum would sit in there alone, her only company being the bag of newly-bought whatever and the already-half-evaporized Coke. She must've been into her bills or something, or simply taking a breather. But she smiled a lot more.
I don't know if it's her or me. Maybe I've changed. Maybe I'm the one who's not smiling as often as before. Maybe it's me who's not laughing anymore. Not projecting it on others, not spreading it around. Is it me who's so miserable with all that's going on that the only thing that keeps me going are memories from the ancient past?
The building has been redone now. Typical modern mainstream style, same as typical communist bulk style like before. All darkened glass, with the reflection of the sky along the whole thing. Rooftop sealed off, with some fancy sushi place that only those same-looking darkened-glass sky-reflection people can afford to enter.
There are no cake slices. There's no Coke. And there's no little Mla.
Now I'm dark-eyed and dark-haired. I've started greying years ago and even found a grey beard hair the other day. I still live in the same house, forty-five minutes away from the Square. A forty-five minute ride I can barely stand whenever I need to get something sorted in the city. The building is ugly, the people are obnoxious and there is rarely any fun at all.
Why the hell do they tell us to grow up?!
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