Elias Alizadeh, sixteen and a half

Ch 4: Banksy

*** If you don't know who Banksy is - you've missed one of the greatest contemporary artists.

His street art is, by now, legendary. Make sure to check the video in the notes, to see a compilation of some of his works. ***

***

After that party, peck and punch, everything really started going downhill for my mental stability. In so many ways. 

Autumn...

I like autumn. The trees catch fire - burning of shades of yellow, orange and red - and eventually let their leaves fall and blanket the ground.
The sky has a hue of clear blue and the air is crisp and cool. Beautiful and picturesque. 

In movies and photographs, that is.

In reality - nine days out of ten, sport the shitty weather of the Swedish south coast peninsula. It's flat as a pancake, surrounded by ocean and you can't escape the winds no matter where you go. 

The ocean is grey, the sky is grey, the winds are cold as ice and it rains nonstop.

It fucking sucks.

Of course my parents just had to choose to settle down one of the absolutely worst places in this country to live in at this time of year.

One just wants to hibernate between September and March. The weather is so awful that it'd even make the people in toothpaste commercials shut down their hysterical smiles and weep.

You can hardly skate since the ground is wet and covered with those IRL-not-so-damn-nice rotting leaves, which leaves you to going to indoor skateparks.
Which are of course pretty nice but remember - grounded. (Until I was 47.)

So - complete agony without end.

I brought a board to school every single day, trying to get at least a little city cruising done, easing my need for a skate fix, before having to haul my ass home to my prison.

Adding to the skate withdrawal and depressing weather - there were end of the year exams in just about every subject of the curriculum.
I don't find them very hard but incredibly boring, not to mention that I hate the fact that it makes the teachers a little bit extra cranky and my parents a whole lot extra meticulous about
making sure that I study hard. (By which I mean that they are on my back constantly.)

In short - I was miserable.

Besides being all gloomy and down, I was also constantly brooding over the weird things that had been going on in my head.
Ever since that party, my mind had been jumbled and I found myself pondering on stuff that I've never thought about before.

I had started to feel a bit awkward around Alex, since I was constantly being reminded of my childish fit and anger which made no sense whatsoever.
Also reminded of how bothered I was about the whole Jenny thing and my inability to fully comprehend why it was such a big deal for me.
(Btw, thankfully nothing more came from that make out session between her and Alex, even though she apparently was crying about it for weeks, I heard from Albin. Since she was rejected, I could allow myself to almost feel a bit sorry for her. Almost.)

But most of all - being around Alex reminded about how that stupid little kiss made me feel. However drunk I was at the time, the memory of that incident was crystal clear.
I still couldn't wrap my head around it. It confused me and constantly made it's way into my head, playing on repeat, making me frustrated since I couldn't get why I was so hung up on it.