The Balcony

10 August

 I once again stand on my balcony. After a heavy wave of sun and warmth I can finally enjoy a cigarette on a windy and rainy day as I love. It reminds me the Fall, the only season that doesn't bother me at all. I don't know why, it is maybe the storms that I find calming, the cold rain when nobody dares to go out and I can enjoy the streets, the trees that are getting naked, naked and pure. It reminds me my favorite band also. Anyway, as I watch into the void, more exactly the sky I remember that my 19th birthday it's approaching. 3 days spares me from this extraordinary event. Biologically I'll be 19, in all the documents 18. Now, you wonder how the hell, it's this possible? Well, it's kind of a funny story. A very funny story. It has begun in December '99, my mother was only 21 years old and she was in a relationship with my not-so-great father. Long story short, they got some drinks in a pub. Way too many drinks. My father was really intelligent, so intelligent that he forgot that Durex and other similar brands made a really nice and great thing named protection.After this romantic event, I made my apparition. The problem was that in Romania at that time an abortion. My mother didn't have the money , either, so this is how I appeared on a nice day in August, in a really clean and comfy hospital, ha ha. I was too big for my mother so she passed out a few times (sorry?). She also had some interventions that did more bad than good so after she gave birth to the most perfect, beautiful, almost dead gremlin she did not have the force to sign my birth certificate. This is where the fun starts. My grandma (my mom's mother, very important detail) was real tired, so tired that she had to go home and to rest herself (I really believe she was tired, I mean, damn, listening to the radio for 1h in a hospital must be exhaused). So, the only person capable to sign my birth certificate at the town hall was my father. He had one damn job, a very important job: declaring my birth. In his way he got a little hungry, so he stopped at a McDonald's. The food there was so good that he forgot what he was supposed to do.

When my mom woke up, she thought that my dad did what he had to do. So, she did not ask him if he did that very important thing. Now you wonder how she managed to know how he forgot? I was kind of ill, too skinny and too little for a normal baby so we got to the hospital. My parents were not living together at that time, so my dad was supposed to bring my birth certificate. When they got to the hospital the situation was kind of:

"Get me the certificate, please." 

"Oh, I don't have that, I thought you had it.''

Blank space for a minute. My mother starts to figure up what the hell my dad did.

"You did not go to the town hall, did you?"

And now, my great father understands that my mother it's going to explode because of her anger. He doesn't say anything except one thing:

"You know, I had things to do, I didn't have the time...''

Indeed, he never has the time. If I had one euro for every time I heard this phrase I could be able to pay maybe some beers. It's not a lot, but it's not like I see him very often.

Getting back to my story, they went to the town hall, the problem is that they got there kind of late, so they had the choice: paying some money or waiting till the next year to declare my birth at that time. It was the second option. 

And that was the moment, when (with all my respect) I understood that my father was a scumbag.

I'm watching the grey sky on my balcony, hoping that one day I will be able to become somebody, that one day I will be something more than a mistake, that I will be somebody different, that I won't be like my father. Till then, I still have some time in front of me, some cigarettes smoke, some bands to see, some books to read and write.