To My Dearest Roseanne- Chapter 5
The electrical supply line going from Bydgoszcz to Konin stretched across a radius of 104 kilometres. The impressive construction was supported by 258 steel poles that were located in twelve different counties, on 1185 private plots of land. It seemed that the only person in the world who cared about the bunch of wires hanging in the sky from one end of the horizon to the other was Mr Orville.
Every day, Mr Orville commuted to work from Squidburb, a city one hour away from Bydgoszcz. The two cities were fairly well communicated with each other in terms of public transport. Trains and buses were leaving every hour, but Mr Orville preferred the latter because the bus stop was right in front of his house.
After approximately ten minutes of the ride, the bus would pass directly under the construction in the village of Mierzwin. Mr Orville had a great view of the supply line from both sides, and it was always an exhilarating experience for him to observe it. He didn't know quite why. He just loved watching thick electrical cables and steel poles. To him, the whole thing looked like ancient statues of Egyptian guards tied together with ropes.
Whenever there was a new season of the year or a change in the weather, he would take out his phone and take a picture of the line. It was his quirky hobby. Evidently, he had no hopes of releasing a photo album about electrical poles, but he could turn the images into some online project possibly in the future.
On Thursday evening, when he was riding back, tired from work, he had noticed maintenance workers climbing on the poles. Their orange jackets vividly stuck out against the dark sky. He tried to take a picture, but there was not enough light for a phone camera to capture anything.
Resigned, he grabbed his backpack to sip chamomile tea from an insulated water bottle. However, he had noticed a flash in the corner of his eye. Mr Orville raised his head, but he saw nothing. For a moment, he could swear that he saw a bolt of lightning hitting one of the poles. Was it even possible? He remembered when one of the students said to him if a lighting hits an electric pole there's absolutely no sound afterwards because of ionisation. Still, he was not an expert on the matter. He only knew that one for sure couldn't hear thunder if the lightning occurred more than 30 kilometres away.
The bus passed under an electrical line as usual. Maintenance workers didn't see anything out of the ordinary in the darkness.
***
On Friday morning, Roseanne woke up without any problems. She cleaned up, put on a uniform, and also walked Enzo. After she was all set, she prepared a cup of tea for her mom and left for the bus stop.
Mr Orville called in sick suddenly, so his classes were scrapped for that day. Friday was relatively easy for Roseanne because, apart from English, she only had to endure military preparation classes and Physical Education. After six hours of work, the class was to be dismissed at quarter to two o'clock.
Emily was late as usual. She arrived at the final minutes of the first hour and begged a teacher to give her "late" status instead of "absent" in the log. Roseanne observed the whole scene with disdain on her face.
The two stayed away from each other, but when they were changing shoes for PE, Emily sat next to Roseanne and offered chewing gum as a token of peace.
"I'm sorry if I wasn't there for you yesterday. You know... How to say this? I am a woman with money, so perhaps I am a Banana baby," she said.
Roseanne took a chewing gum.
"Sorry I freaked out on you. I was irritated, but your attitude is really too much sometimes. You need to get it together, girl. Orientate yourself to something"
"I'd like to... but the timetable is a killer, to be honest. We have so many hours per week! I would have functioned better had we not started so early. By the way, I heard Kacper has been asking about you" Emily said.
"Oh, did he?" Roseanne made a surprised expression.
"He keeps bragging that you two will get together again."
"Bullshit. Never again with this cockroach!" Roseanne shivered visibly at the thought of a former toxic boyfriend.
After this quick reset in a friendship between Roseanne and Emily, the two took part in a three-hour long running session arm to arm. Needless to say, they were exhausted by the end of it.
"Next week, I'm definitely skipping PE," Emily said while trying to catch a breath.
"Girl..."
***
After PE, Roseanne stayed for an additional practice of MMA training. These were non-compulsory activities for students, but Roseanne only had time to do them on Fridays. Unlike Emily, she hadn't had a problem dealing with physical exertion. If anything, it made her sleep better on Friday nights. In addition, by participating in MMA, Roseanne had a sense of honing a skill.
When the practice concluded, it was by no means the end for Roseanne. Together with their drill instructor, a middle-aged ex-commando sporting a moustache, Sergeant Warwick, the group would line up and travel by tram from school to the Minor Basilica of St. Vincent de Paul. Although Roseanne wasn't a fan of churches, she couldn't help but marvel at the design of the basilica in question. It looked more like a colonial administrative building, with a small church fitted in the middle, covered by a large dome. Evidently, the whole compound was a church, and the inside of it was enormous. Time and time again, upon entering it, Roseanne felt as if she were visiting the Vatican.
The reason the high schoolers went there each Friday with their drill instructor was because they participated as volunteers in charity events organised by the church on the last Friday of each month. Their task was to distribute clothing and food to people in need. Again, as in the case of MMA, Roseanne felt a sense of personal fulfilment whenever she was pouring soup into a bowl and giving it to all sorts of people who got run over by the wheels of this merciless world.
Obviously, different people came up to Roseanne for food. Some of them were smelly drunkards or junkies who would never utter a single 'Thank you,' but there were also men and women, in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, who looked sober. They would thank Roseanne and even, sometimes, shake the girl's hand. She would feel the warmth of their roughed skin as it touched hers. Then, they would sit by the table and pray over a soup they were given. All these people, villainous or pure at heart, had one thing in common: they were penniless and homeless.
The weekly volunteer work taught Roseanne that anyone can end up on the street. They can be destroyed by an addiction, financial troubles, illness, or other unfortunate circumstances. Initially, she was reluctant to engage in charity, but her father encouraged her to do so. He felt the daughter would benefit from the experience of directly helping others, but he didn't account for the graphic sights she would be exposed to.
At times, when things got out of hand, some crazy beggar would strip himself and start urinating in the middle of the altar. Then, Sergeant Warwick and a duty officer would step into action. Sometimes, Roseanne would witness horrible bodily predicaments: rashes that deformed faces, cut ears, deep purple scars, swollen necks and many others. Once, she wanted to give a portion of sauerkraut to some lady in rags. The lady smiled kindly exposing her rotten teeth and reached for a plate, but she had no hands. From under the coattails, the only things that emerged towards Roseanne were the wrists.
An overwhelming sense of nausea overpowered the girl, so strong that she immediately ran into a bathroom and vomited. It's been a while since that unfortunate incident and Roseanne managed to grow accustomed to seeing the unexpected injuries, but back then, in that bathroom, as her stomach was violently getting rid of its contents, she was struck by one horrifying thought:
Did my mom suffer great pain?
It happened a few years ago. Roseanne was in primary school, whereas her mother worked in a glass factory. After finishing her shift, Liz rushed to a bus, so she could get back home and cook dinner for her daughter. She had to walk the dog as well. Enzo was still a puppy back then, but his fussy attitude was giving the family a run for their money,
Call it bad luck or malevolence of the universe, but catching that early bus to Szwederowo cost Liz dearly. It was only a matter of seconds, but suddenly, a car appeared out of nowhere, heading straight towards the bus. Trying to avoid certain death, the bus driver made a sharp turn, which made the vehicle spin out of the road and hit the side of a nearby household. Many passengers made it out just with bruises, one broke an arm, but Liz... Liz's legs were completely crushed.
Roseanne's father tried to shelter her from all the news about the accident, but she somehow caught a glimpse of a newspaper report. It contained photos of a bus in shambles like Lego bricks. The doctors did everything in their power to save Liz's legs, but she lost feeling from the waist down. She was forced to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair, carrying two immobile and scarred pieces of meat that used to be her legs.
Although Roseanne asked her mother numerous times, she claims she has no recollection of the accident. She says she was on a bus and her memory broke like a film tape, just like that.
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