To My Dearest Roseanne- Chapter 8
Emily decided to take her Kawasaki Ninja out for a spin on a beautiful Saturday morning. She put on a helmet as well as a white biker jacket, and off she rode to buy groceries. In front of the ABC convenience store, however, she froze upon seeing a car emerging from a corner.
"Oh, Ford Mustang!" she shouted and took a snapshot.
It could be said that car spotting was Emily's hobby. Even though she didn't belong to any online club, she always felt an urge to take pictures of either vintage or sports cars that piqued her curiosity.
Even at school, Emily just couldn't help herself when she noticed a Mitsubishi LanEvo or Subaru WRX outside the window. Evidently, Mr Orville noticed her quirk and he once sent her a picture of a Honda Civic Type R. Emily yelled in surprise and immediately sent him a photo from her own collection.
"Recently, I visited 'the Automotive Icons' exhibition in Warsaw. There I saw a Toyota AE-86 and it reminded me of you," read the message under the attached photograph. She knew Mr Orville liked this car.
Mr Orville immediately hearted the black Toyota and replied, "What a privilege! Thank you for your kind words, and consider yourself lucky."
Indeed, Emily was always grateful whenever she spotted a car with style and history. She also appreciated that Mr Orville didn't look down on her passion like other teachers who shouted at her or immediately confiscated her phone.
Having done away with the shopping, Emily put the groceries in a backpack and headed over to a nearby petrol station to refill the tank of her Kawasaki Ninja.
When she entered the inside to pay for the refill, she stood in front of a shopping clerk who was a typical post-communist middle-aged woman behind the counter. She taxed Emily with her thick reading glasses. The sight of a 5 feet 3 inches tall teenager in a biker jacket holding a helmet must have been quite something.
"That's 68,41 Po coins. Do you want a receipt, a bill, or an invoice?" asked the woman in a sluggish manner.
Upon hearing the question, Emily's mind got flooded with hesitation. Isn't a receipt, a bill, and an invoice one of the same? she thought.
"An invoice..." Emily uttered.
"Name of the company?"
"Ah, no! I'd like a receipt please."
The shopping clerk sighed and printed out the proof of payment on a tiny paper roll.
"What do they teach ya in school these days? You think you're gonna impress anybody with that motorbike, whippersnapper?"
As soon as she heard the words of insult, a rush of blood made Emily's face red with fury.
"Up yours, you old bitch! I hope you will keel over and die behind this counter, and nobody will find you until your corpse starts smelling rotten eggs!"
The shopping clerk was about to erupt with rage, but before the situation escalated further, Emily stormed out of the building with her belongings.
The girl quickly jumped on the bike and started the engine. She could vaguely hear the clerk throwing tantrums at her from the entrance but tried her best to ignore them.
Emily revved up the engine and left the petrol station in a flash. That was her freedom, that was the power of Kawasaki Ninja. But her happiness was short-lived. Before Emily realised, a loud explosion took place on the horizon and the aftershock had such an enormous magnitude that it had smitten her off the vehicle.
Confused, she got up and took off her helmet. Looking into a distance, she saw a blaze of raging flames. Perhaps the most unusual aspect of the explosion was that the flames were blue. Did the chemical plant explode or what? To her, the scene of disaster looked like it was from a superhero movie.
"Mom is never going to believe this," she said to herself while picking up the bike.
***
Roseanne woke up because of Enzo's barking. With the speed of a blue-collar worker suffering from a hangover, she got out of bed and let the dog out on a balcony. Confusion has taken over her half-awakened mind. What day is it? Saturday or Sunday? What time is it? Did I oversleep? Roseanne asked herself.
After making sure it was 8 o'clock in the morning, she turned on the TV and went to the bathroom. Roseanne couldn't care less about a news report that was being broadcast while she was washing her face.
"Approximately one hour ago this Saturday morning, there was an explosion at an electrical supply line in the village of Mierzwin. Fortunately, the incident took place on a field in an uninhabited area, so nobody was hurt. The Power Grid Company Ltd. has issued an official statement claiming the explosion happened due to a technical malfunction, but that is yet to be confirmed by an internal investigation. Company executives say that there will not be any power outages either in Bydgoszcz or Konin, which are connected by the supply line. In the meantime, members of the opposition party in the capital of Po are calling for a special committee to look into the matter. Stay tuned for further reports from WGZF News Channel."
Having done the morning toilet routine, Roseanne went to the kitchen. Her mom had already prepared a light breakfast made of scrambled eggs and sandwiches.
"Can you believe it, hon?" asked Liz, "A big explosion in the middle of nowhere?"
"Huh?" Roseanne made the asking sound with her mouth full.
"There was an explosion. It's all over the news! Do you have to be out of the loop again, like with the farmer's protest?"
"Television is a pack of lies," Roseanne said calmly and returned to scrambled eggs.
"You have to be up to speed with the news, dear, to avoid any dangers when you go out like roadblocks, accidents, or, God forbid, even worse."
"The acronym WGZF is there for a reason, you know?"
"What do you mean?"
"We Give Zero Fucks News."
"Roseanne, language!" Liz felt utter distaste upon hearing the joke.
"Sorry, Mom," Roseanne laughed. "But it's true!"
"The correct name of the channel is Worldwide Global Zone Framework, and our antenna picks it up because it's free.
"Doesn't matter, all of the media lie: Facebook, Google, and so on."
"Then delete all of the applications if you think so!"
"Have to use them for communication. Necessary evil."
"You have an explanation for everything, like your dad."
"Oh! This reminds me."
When Liz and Roseanne finished breakfast, the daughter diligently cleaned all the dishes in the sink. Then, she grabbed the phone and called her father.
***
Robert Juzynski was in the cabin of his Volvo truck. He went from Hel to Sopot with the cargo transportation of frozen fish. Just another day on the job for a trucker. Go to one place, leave the payload, pick another one, get to another place. The worst part was travelling "empty," but thanks to the merciless diligence of forwarders (who were fighting with each other to keep their jobs) this rarely happened.
Friends and family were scratching their heads over Robert's profession. It wasn't a desk job, so it didn't provide the security of standard 9 to 5. So much time was spent beyond the house, and a lot of paperwork to do, let alone minding the condition of a truck that had to be ready for the job.
Evidently, the work of a trucker in the Land of Po was devoid of romanticism and a laid-back lifestyle, so much promoted by Hollywood flicks. In the line of duty, one had to be prepared to endure loneliness: four weeks on the job, one week of rest, this was the preferred job model of the companies. Still, Robert was willing to put up with all that jazz because it was better than being a bus driver. The things passengers used to say were unbearable:
"Where's my retirement discount?! You don't honour retirement discounts on the bus?!"
"You were five minutes late! Shut the fuck up and drive on or I will smack you!"
"Open the windows man or I'm gonna pop!"
"Is there a detour to drive around this road accident?"
Although he had the patience of a saint, even he couldn't handle the insanity of dealing with old hags, drunks, teenagers, and irresponsible parents. One day, his bus got stuck in a jam and a 10-year-old child started crying so loud as if it were being skinned alive. The parents grappled with the child like they were participants in some MMA match and eventually gave up, leaving the child crying and yelling.
Yes, he preferred to transport frozen fish or sacks of potatoes than passengers. Thank you very much.
When Roseanne called, he immediately picked up the phone.
"Hello, my princess, my sun of the nation!" Robert used the traditional greeting he always said to his daughter. "How are you holding on?"
"As usual, Dad. I'm an unstoppable force of nature, you know that."
"Mom mentioned that you had some beef with a friend. Is that true?"
"Huh, well. It's old news already. Nothing serious happened."
"You keep on studying, right?"
"Trying to do my best as hard as I can!"
They chatted for an additional 15 minutes about mundane stuff like Robert's pick-up routes or Enzo's recent diarrhoea because he ate stale meat. Roseanne had to explain how she had to feed the dog with plain rice to bring his digestion back to balance.
"Okay, I need to go to pay the bills at the post office. Love you, Dad!"
"Love you, sweetie!"
After this traditional farewell that concluded the conversation, Robert Juzynski put down the phone. The best part of the day was definitely over for him. Indeed, he loved his daughter and wife with all his might, and he wished he could have been with them, but his primary responsibility as the head of the family was to be the breadwinner. He had to provide for them, all the more because Liz suffered an accident.
With that in mind, he turned on the ignition and headed for another pick-up.
***
Trying to do her best, who was she fooling?
Each Saturday, Roseanne felt drained, felt exhausted. Waking up at home with the thought she doesn't need to go to school for two days, only assures her belief that school is a modern-day prison without bars: The Great Timeconsumer, The Vacuum of Effort, where children waste 70% of their life. She wanted to be the best, she wanted to have the best grades, and the best Maturity exam results, so she could get into a military academy, get an officer rank, and bring home a proper paycheck.
Trying to do her best.
It's never enough.
People will pat you on the back. Tell you how good you did. And walk away. To the comfort of their carefree houses. Not giving a damn about your best.
Dad, I want you so bad to be with me, but it's a relief you can't see me right now, she thought.
***
Enzo briskly went out for a walk, sticking his tongue in awe as if he were a discord moderator who discovered grass for the first time. When the dog emptied his bowels, Roseanne took out a special bag and, with the grace of a professional craftsman, removed the poop from the public lawn. That was the law in the Land of Po: removal of excrement. Back in her kindergarten times, public lawns were a no-go zone for children because there were more dog poops in the grass than the grass itself. Today, older citizens (who obviously know better) continue to leave their dog shit when police are not around as a special surprise for other passers-by.
At a post office located next to BDSM central (Bydgoszcz's Domicile Super-Housing Membership-Office), Roseanne stood in a long queue to a desk clerk. Indeed, a lot of things changed at the post office, but not the queues. The offices were once bigger, now they're smaller. You could only buy postcards, now you can buy calendars, handbags, and prayer books! When she was little, people paid their bills, and a desk clerk would stamp them. They would take a massive stamp, smash it against a wet sponge, and then smash it harder against the receipt. DUM-BUM! DUM-BUM! DUM-BUM! Roseanne remembered the sound, always in a sequence of three.
Nowadays, desk clerks just place a tiny, little stamp without any noise. It's quite anticlimactic, actually. In the past, you got DUM-BUM! DUM-BUM! DUM-BUM! Piss off, little girl! attitude, but now it's Good Morning! 500 Po coins, please. Goodbye attitude.
As in the case of supermarkets, Roseanne hated standing in the queues. Had Emily been with her, the friend would have tapped her head and advised to make the payments via bank transfer. The problem was Roseanne didn't know how to do it, and she felt embarrassed to ask Emily for help.
***
Having done the shopping as usual, Roseanne spent the remainder of the afternoon cramming mindlessly for tests and doing homework. By sundown, her brain was so fried that she couldn't tell the difference between ascending aorta and descending aorta or the concept of organic work promoted by Bolesław Prus and the idea of longing for the fatherland advocated by Adam Mickiewicz. School is the whorehouse of unnecessary knowledge. 100% no doubt about that.
When it came to homework from Mr Orville, Roseanne lost the fumes of her willpower. Using the words expressing personal opinion, she was to describe the best day of her life in English. The best day of her life? For sure, she could describe the worst day of her life, more than one(!), but she felt she hadn't experienced the best day of her life at all.
Tired, Roseanne opened up ChatGPT. She conjured up patchworked bullshit on the basis of bot's suggestions. That's all she was willing to do.
"There, half-assed and done," she said, feeling a little guilty for cheating Mr Orville, but this assignment just wasn't right up her alley.
Just when Rosanne turned on some music, ready to chill out, she heard an awful noise coming from the bathroom. It sounded similar to a stack of books falling off the shelves. She jumped out of chair trying to comprehend what happened, and then it hit her.
"Oh, no, no, no! Mom!" she screamed.
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