Flashbacks by Alisa Pyaskovska

Gregory was sitting by the window in the living room.

Outside, on the other side of the glass, there was life. People were passing by, dogs barking, and teens turning on rap music in their cars with open windows… He didn’t pay attention to those things. Actually, he was so distracted from what was happening outside that he could see dirty spots on the window glass. How did he get to this point in his life? He couldn’t answer. Nothing was really wrong on the outside of him – he was handsome, had a job, apartment and a good car. He even had a girlfriend but he didn’t believe in her feelings. Now he was sitting in the living room in his parent’s house. He grew up here and these walls kept many of his secrets. When he was five, his mother still was married to his father. He couldn’t tell this marriage was happy from the distance of twenty years. But then, at five, he thought his parents loved each other and were happy. Nothing else can be in the world of a five-year-old. Sometimes his grandmother came to their house and were always telling him strange things. She always had this little bottle in her purse, which she got out every time his mother wasn’t there. Gregory didn’t know how to feel about his grannie. She was his relative but she smelled strange and talked strange. He was often afraid of her because he didn’t know what to expect. Once, when she finished her bottle, she leaned to him and whispered: “You know, I will tell you a secret. Don’t tell your parents I did”, Gregory loved secrets, so he agreed. “Gregory, you are a child nobody wanted” she started laughing strangely “your mother wanted to do abortion when she knew what is inside of her, and your father didn’t want to admit that her child was his” her eyes looked through Gregory as if he wasn’t sitting in front of her. She was drunk, Gregory could tell now, when he is twenty-five. However, at five he didn’t know what “drunk” and “abortion” is, but he felt that grannie told him something horrible and started crying.

When he was six, he started going to school. And that was the year when the “grannie’s bottle” appeared in their house without grannie. Once she stopped coming and he never saw her again. Now it was dad, who was drinking. Every day, after school, Gregory tried to slip into the house without noise and almost every time he was caught. Now he heard words “useless” and “stupid”, “naughty” and “disobedient” almost every day, between punching. Nothing could stop his dad until one day, during another fight, he told his parents what his grannie told him when he was five. After that day everything changed. His parents, who loved each other and were happy turned out to hate each other and divorced. He felt that he was the reason everything went wrong. His mother got married for the second time but now Gregory had no illusions about it. He didn’t believe his new dad likes him and didn’t believe that his mother is happy.

And then school bullying started. It was always about his Greek nose. They called him Greek geek when in a good mood. He didn’t remember much from school because his memory tried to make it easier for him. Every person has a limit of bad things they can remember. His limit was beaten in his early childhood. Now, grown up, handsome and wanted man was still a six-year-old deep inside.