By Cara Stray
The fence flies and falls, and the sky rushes to meet it. I sink each time I rise.
Their garden stretches out beside me as I hurtle through the sky, and then it shrivels up and disappears behind the fence as I return to land.
Only at the very top can I see them all, circulating on the lawn. Glasses in hand, around a centre of attention who is walking back towards the house. Carrying a tray of drinks, she struggles.
Again, I fall back down to earth. My trampoline, underneath me, is insufficiency.
I go up, and this time a door is held open for the struggler by the tip of an index finger. It can’t hold for long, and she knows this, picking up speed. The drinks wobble.
I am back down again. My legs are sore, because they aren’t enough - I cannot stay up for long.
Up again; the fence disappears. On the other side, the door falls shut before she can catch it.
Sorry. Calling from inside their house.
Don’t be. She is embarrassed she didn’t make it in time.
Above the garden, their bathroom window is blurred and grimy. When it moves down (or I move up – it is all relative and all irrelevant), I can see their blue tiles inside. The sealant in the in-between is rotting. They had sex, in secret. Everyone knows, in his parent’s shower.
The adults in the garden don’t know. Petrol money. Generosity. No please. Take the money. Say nothing!
Last week, the party was inside and it was teenage. Packed house and noise complaints. What can I say is what she said.In defence: teenagers are loud.
Teenage understanding is loud. It feels overwhelming compared to the understanding of a species.
This time, the party is in the garden. The garden makes it adult, and the adults are there too. They don’t mention complaints.
Sink, bounce, fly. The trampoline and I try hard.
I was indignant, defensive of the noise worth complaining about. Why shouldn’t the party be loud? Teenagers ARE loud.
Teenagers exist in the dialogue. Held up by a stream of words, frothy and broken. The endless interactions don’t live in the in-between - in the descriptive paragraphs, the running metaphors, the Effective Use of Repetition to Emphasize theAuthor’s Point. All that is wasted. The Teen Age is marked out by lines of communication.
Up, I fly. The boy’s bedroom, in the house further down - I can only catch a glimpse between the trees, in the seconds before I fall.
Our trees are home to a teenage conspiracy. The neighbourhood reeks of it. An uprising. Fuck the lot of them, because WE UNDERSTAND.
I can’t see him, but I see his homesickness. He regrets the exchange, regrets leaving Greece. This is your home too now is what they say. There is no space for home in that room.
I have wanted to say something to him since he arrived.
Down I go, and the sky falls up. The trees are unchanged. They are good at that, our rotting trees. They guard the teenage meetings and swear to keep these secrets that won’t make it to the grave.
To be part of the conspiracy is to know and belong. This is youth we’re talking about. It was designed to be impenetrable from the outside. The adults say to Tell An Adult You Trust. But the adults did not build these trenches, and they do not know how to fight in them.
The dialogue feeds the Age. It is all in the words. Talking -talking right. This is the youth that sends messages at the end, the noise of keyboard clicks over triggers pulling. News cycles shouting in circles. That hasn’t happened to me, not yet. Keep quiet, say nothing. That is not my story to tell.
This is the youth. Entirely alone, entirely isolated, because no one else has ever been raised here and raised now. No one else could ever, will ever understand. Sorry.
The garden brings round some wine.
The thank-you’s are what they say. Don’t mention it.
Say Nothing.
Don’t be.
Someone moves in the bathroom window. Teenage. I cannot see them, but I know that they know.
Up again. Once, I asked for something - Tell me. It is not much. Not all of the cake, not even a slice. I won’t even eat it.
It is not our secret to tell is what was said. And a conspiracy only exists if it is a conspiracy against. The last part is not said out loud.
They all know how to be teenage. This is because of the secrets they share. On handwritten notes, passed around and pocketed, they were given the formula. And now they can substitute in the situation, and rearrange for the answer, and the answer tells them which action they will regret the least. This way they can minimize the self-loathing.
It is not my secret to tell. I don’t talk like they do.
Down again. Teaching in-between the trees, they learn this talk. They learn to have parties that are worth complaining about. They learn to hear the homesickness in communication, to turn the wanting into wanted. To have sex in the shower before the parents come home. They learn and live in the conspiracy against –
I don’t want to say it out-loud.
Up, again.
Don’t mention it.
Me is the worst of all the words.
Down, again.
Say nothing.
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