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| Novel Graduation Film (one of the many versions which finally ended up in the bin or here) | | * [[Media:Novel graduation film.pdf|Novel graduation film]] |
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| | | One of the many versions that finally ended up in the bin or here. |
| The tender drum of the collision between the racket and the shuttle rub my skin. The stretch of grass is overshadowed by sunlight. My parents sit in the back, I can’t focus on them, they are somehow blurred, but present enough to guard over me. I fall in a deep trance, the only thing I see is the shuttle coming closer and bouncing back again. It can’t decide who he prefers, me or my brother and we both keep rejecting him. Tump, dump, tump, dump, nothing around me matters except for the shuttle flying back and forth.
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| ‘Hi, Mom.’
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| ’Hey, close the door will you.’
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| ’But it’s bloody hot.’
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| ’Well, I think it’s cold ok.’
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| ’Ok, I’ll close it.’
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| I grab a large glass of cold water and sit down. My mother looks at me and I know she wants me to talk about myself again.
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| ’You look a bit tired, did you go out last night?’ My mother asks me. Here we go again, well I’ll tell her.
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| ’Yeah, I did actually, oh it was a great night, went to some bars, met some interesting people.’
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| ’So you’re finally settling in then?’
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| ’Yeah, it’s a quite a nice city actually, you have to get to know the right places, meet the right people, it is not as bad as I pictured.’
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| The cold purified water extinguishes the flaming lies in my body.
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| My pumped up body walks through the long hallway of the subway station. My last place of order in this night. It’s simple, bright and clear, it stands in deep contrast with my mind; full of passion, of horniness, of voices who scream for alcohol and sympathy. I smell every woman that passes me as if I can suck her body warmth in through my nose. Rotterdam, Jesus what a shithole. All these tall buildings that stare at me. They don’t welcome me, they don’t embrace me with a smile, all they do is stare, whisper to each other that an intruder entered their town. Well fuck them, I don’t need them. The streets are sober and empty. With all its power the city tries to keep people as far away from each others as possible. The shining lampposts are the only reminder that people actually live here, without them it looks like a desolated city that is left by its ashamed inhabitants; who couldn’t take the ugliness anymore, all they could do was to show Rotterdam their back.
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| I walk towards Eendrachtsplein, groups of bees without a queen fly past each other in different directions, nobody knows the right way. They look like kids a day before their birthday searching for the presents their parents forgot to buy. No wonder there’s no bar called Paradiso here. I take a seat at Rottown, the bar is half empty, people talk, laugh and drink. What brightens their day? I don’t know, I don’t see it. I can’t share their joy, I can’t find the relief they find here. I find nothing but shallowness and emptiness. I feel like I’m floating through the carcass of a gigantic whale, I slide towards his stomach and can’t stop myself. The people who pulled themselves on the side of the whale his insides, act as lethargic animals, silently they watch me sliding to the end.
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| Before I’m properly seated I hear the bartender shouting: ‘Last round!’ Christ it’s not even midnight and they’re closing the joint already. Half of the bar is still full, with people wanting to party on, yet the bar policy is determined; no fun tonight. I see a friend which I used to play football with in my hometown. He’s an art history student, who doesn’t like Dali and thinks art should become more accessible to the public. We spot each other, let him come to me. He walks over and with a smile he asks me: ’Hey man, what’s up, you still like Dali?’
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| ’Yeah, actually I still think he’s fucking great! Still studying others peoples work?’
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| ’Uh yeah…’
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| ’Well fuck it, to which shithole do we go next?’
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| ’You don’t like this place?’
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| ’Or the next.’
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| ’You’re not a fan of the city’s night life then?’
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| ’Night life? I can’t seem to get past night. This bar is already closing, even in our town we could go to several better bars than the options we are left here with.’
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| A girl calls his name, his friends want to move on. We walk through the dark streets of Rotterdam, the alcohol is slowly crawling in my head like a small green monster spitting pure craziness through all the nerves of my brains. I see groups walking in other directions, apparently they know where they’re going. Maybe there is something I’ve missed in this town, maybe there are warm, muggy places. We enter art street where some bars are still open. The galleries are black, I can’t see inside, I only see my own reflection. I wish somebody would stop me, right here right now and just hold me. Two warm arms around me, who whisper in my ear: ‘everything will be all right’ and who hold me till I don’t know which day it is.
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| ‘Why did you come home?’ My mother asks me.
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| ‘Why? I don’t know, because it’s fun. Why do you ask?’
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| ‘Well, since you moved out, you haven’t spent a week over there without coming back. Don’t get me wrong, it is fun, but shouldn’t you stay there for a couple of weeks to get settled?’
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| ‘I am settled! … I am just bored there, almost everyone still lives here, you know?!’
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| ‘Ok, that might be right, but how are you ever going to build a life up there then…’
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| My eyes avoid hers: ‘Is there still some bread left?’
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| When I enter the bar, the eyes avoid me as if I’m here to tell them bad news they’re not ready to hear. I order a beer from the uninterested bartender. I look around, see only backs of groups talking to each other, what is this, first grade all over again? Finally a pair of eyes find me. The person to who they belong make me glow inside.
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| ‘Hi, are you from around?’ I ask her with pain in my stomach.
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| ‘Yes, actually I am.’
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| ‘Is there any place that isn’t as stiff as here, where there aren’t well fed thirty plus men, who live to brag?’
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| ‘No, for a Wednesday this is it and I like it actually.’
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| ‘Hmmm, ok, did you ever see a naked clown riding his tricycle with a pregnant hamster tied down on his head?’
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| ‘Uhh, no.’
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| ‘You haven’t? That’s a shame, it’s an experience in itself, you really should see it before the chiwawa cries Polizei! Polizei!’
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| Her first so smiling eyes change into a swimming pool by night. She remains silent. I start again:
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| ‘Are all Rotterdammers that boring?’
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| ‘What? If you don’t like it, what are you doing here?’
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| ‘To find best friends forever of course.’
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| ‘Ah forget it, leave me alone will you.’
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| ‘No, no, please, I’m just fooling around. What if I tell you my body rose a 20 degrees when our eyes met.’
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| ‘Then I would say, I might listen.’
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| ‘Common, be honest. This city is like the white stripes on a highway, unconnected, unaware of each other’s existence, lying motionless on the ground waiting for the next tires to leave their dirt on them. It is not your fault, somebody just forgot to fill in the black parts.’
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| ‘Why don’t you just drop death!’
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| She turns around and leaves me standing alone in a spinning bar. It feels like all their eyes are kicking me in the stomach, my chewed up food makes it way to my throat. I run outside and barf all over the street. I walk away from the eyes in this rolling land. Everyone spits their bottled up vomit on me. The street, the buildings, the eyes, they all want me to fuck off. Why I am such an asshole, why can’t I enjoy a night out, I always have to be so fucking annoying, I always have to fuck with people’s heads, I’m sucking my own energy out of my body, somebody just pull the plug please.
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| Slowly I shrink, my mother is here. ‘Hi Mom’ I yell, but she doesn’t hear me all she does is sucking air. Wait it’s not just air she is sucking me in. In a trance I slide back in her mouth, I pass her teeth and make my way for a long slide down her gullet. I’m in no control of my body, I am weightless, motionless as if an elevator inside my body goes all the way down, it will not stop until it reaches the basement. As I fall down in eternal darkness I start to see a small glittering pool underneath me, every second it becomes bigger and bigger until I drop in this pool of motherliness like a small rock thrown into the sea. It sucks me down to the bottom, I can’t breathe in this thick mucus, my eyelids slowly close, all becomes black.
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| My eyes slowly open again, the first rays of sun light blow into my brains. I lie on street, Rotterdam is vastly asleep, the night life is safely tucked away into the memories of the persons present. What’s that? In a blur I see a man in a orange fluorescent jacket with a very long arm coming in my direction. With his arm he now and then slides over the ground to stick it in a large black bag again. When he comes closer I see he picks up garbage from the streets. What a waist of time. My head hurts, he moves closer.
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| ’Should I pick you up then as well?’ He points with his arm in my direction and laughs. I close my eyes for a while to hope that he’s gone when I open them, but he’s still there. ‘Well I don’t now if you fit in my garbage bag, but it is better then the street, right mate.’ He laughs even harder.
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| I try to concentrate and reply: ‘Who the fuck cares, the real waist that lies around Rotterdam is it’s inhabitants, if they could all fit in that bag count me in. But otherwise leave it man, just take a seat next to me, nobody is happy with what you do, who cares to find waste in city like this. It’s full with shit anyway. It’s like cleaning a sewer, there’s no end to it.’
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| ’Haha, I don’t what shit happened to you in here, but I’ve been doing this for a few years now and I’ll probably do this till I die. Last week on a day off, right, I walked with my son passed the Maas. Some hobo sits on a bench drinking beers, right. I see him opening a beer and the lid falls on the floor, right. So I step up to him and ask him why he doesn’t throws it in the garbage can. He tells me, “Yeah but I will, but I’ll do it when I leave so I only have to bend over once to get all the lids from the ground” Haha, my son started laughing then I started laughing then the we all laughed, it was great, you know.’
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| A smile enters my face, his long arm pulls me up my feet, wait what’s that sound. I recognise it from somewhere, I heard it before. Tump... tump... tump... tump... I give the cleaner a pat on the back and I run as fast as I can. The wind dries my mouth from inside, my mind is all over the place, the sound amplifies. I run around the corner to see a girl standing on an empty street with a badminton racket in her hand. She hits the shuttle high up in the air for a few times, stops and turns around. She looks at me, I walk to her grab a racket from the ground and start playing.
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