Dating : Please, Steal My Novel!

Mum always insisted on keeping things in order. Everything in its right place. Fuck that. I was the only one who wasn’t robbed.

Burglars Stole Everything but my Novel

-Let’s start from the beginning.-

-Yeah, start over, mate.-

-Sure, so…-

-First of all. What on Earth would they possibly want to steal from you? For as far as I can recall, you never owned anything of value, unless you were rich in your previous life. Were you?-

-Nope…-

-I’ve been in your room when we were young. Let’s be honest, it looked like a dump.-

-Exactly. And that’s why I…-

-I don’t know man, are we really talking about it?-

-Steve, would you shut your mouth??-

-Was it Summer or Winter?-

-Autumn.-

-Perfect. Go.-

Bedroom

-The usual hysteria of the mum is polluting the air and, somehow, it manages to sneak into my dreams, interrupting my comatose sleep. No Surprises. She enters the room with the delicacy of a SWAT team. She slams the windows open and pulls the sheets, forcing me to wake up. Whatever. I had to be at the Uni that day, so be it. I crawl out of the bed, stumble all my way towards the bathroom and…-

-No dirty details, please. I don’t want to have a surgeon removing my brain retinas because of that.-

-??-

-Brain retinas exist. I swear.-

-Anyway, I was sitting on the can, waiting for the right moment.-

-Mate?!?!?!?!-

-Just kidding… I reach for the Bourbon bottle next to the toothbrush and I have my first hit. I Gulp it down, straight into my empty, burning stomach.-

-Liar. Liar. Liar. You don’t even drink. Don’t try looking like a rockstar, cause you’re not.-

-Point taken. I just wanted a glass of water. And a ciggy.-

-Sounds familiar, go on.-

Kitchen

-Sister is making some Herbal Nonsense Tea, as usual. Dad is already in his vegetable garden, checking out that no veggies escaped overnight. Mum is still yelling. I wander around, in my underpants, scratching my head, doing some push-ups with my eyelids to see if they’re willing to open.-

-You failed, didn’t you?.-

-Always. So, I stick my head under the tap, and guzzle as much water as I can fill in my belly. I stand back up and I feel sick.-

-Who said water can’t harm you? You should have had an apple afterwards. You know, it fixes your stomach.-

-No way. Those things make my teeth bleed.-

-That’s Kurt Cobain, mate! Be serious.-

-Sorry. I actually go back to bed and wait until the screaming, the cursing, Are You Ready for God’s Sake?? splash, Two minutes Mum! crAsH! I’ll be back at eight! Thump! What? tlin? BACK AT… pling! Don’t forget to stop at the grocery store! SLAM!, cheap chats are over and everyone is out.-

Broom Broom BROOOM!!

-The cars are gone too. Finally, I’m alone.-

-Wow. You’re telling me so many things I don’t give a damn about.-

-You’re welcome.-

-What about getting to the point. Burglary?-

The Break-in

-First, some info about the House.-

-Oh, come on…-

-It’s important.-

-…-

The House

-Everything is tidy. Every chromed spot is shining, beds are tucked in, and a thousand useless things are perfectly lined up on the polished surfaces. Dirty dishes are chatting quietly inside the washing machine, and the round, flat, freakin robot is sweeping the floors, carrying around his annoying digital noise.-

-Technology…-

-Yes. That cretin thing is drunken as a Butterfly in Spring. It keeps on bumping into every possible corner. I remove the battery. Nice. I’ll put them back later, so mum won’t notice it.-

-Any dark place in the Fairy Kingdom?-

-Yes, yes, now you’re getting along with the story! My bedroom and my Sister’s. Those are the only duty-free, offshore lands in mum’s reign. Everything’s possible in those messy places. Arts flourish and creativity is at its best.-

-Sure. So, you’re wasting time, you’re enjoying the peace of an empty house. Didn’t you have to go to the Campus?-

-Hell yeah. And I was late, as you can imagine. All because of the other living creatures occupying the House. I had to rush. First things first, though.-

-Always.-

-Still wearing my pants, I step outside, rear garden. I roll a ciggy and I light it up. The warm smoke dives smoothly inside my Iron Lungs. A puff follows another, till I gloriously end up burning the filter, my fingers and my lips. First fag of the day. I feel sick again.-

-Glass of water.-

-Thanks mate!-

-As if I care.-

-Then I grab the first thing I find on my bedroom’s floor, I give it a quick smell to make sure it’s still wearable, and BLAST! I’m ready to rock’n’roll. I stick another ciggy in my mouth before embarking on my journey to the Uni. I’m out.-

-See you later alligator.-

-You can read my mind!-

-The break-in, mate.-

-About that…-

-What? Don’t tell me…-

-Don’t freak out. It’s all related.-

-Obviously.-

The Burglary

-I am now listening to a very interesting, yet quite long and boring lecture about Medieval Architecture when I receive a call. I sneak out of the class and:

Hey, it’s dad, Home has been burgled, where are you? All Good?

Oh, it’s nothing, I just wanted to let you know. Click.

-Like that?-

-Yeah… dad’s not very effusive. However, it turns out that the thieves were waiting for us to leave before engaging in their routine morning robbery.-

-No shit. So they were staring at you?-

-I guess…-

-Dressed in your filthy pants?-

-…-

-Awful image. Erase. Rewind. So what did they steal?-

-They were professionals. They smashed a window panel to get inside. They cut the safe’s door with an Angle Grinder (yes, we provided electricity for it) and finally took all the money in it. Then they rummaged around the rooms and stole whatever they valued worthy, including (obviously) all the jewellery mum was keeping tidy inside the first drawer of her Vanity.-

-You figure.-

-Exactly! She might as well have put a label on each one, with a list of contents.-

-I am picturing her, right now.-

-Being organised cost my mum to lose some good-old grandma’s memories. Forever.-

-…-

-They weren’t exactly worthy in terms of money, but they were extremely precious for her.-

-Never tidy up your room. X — checked.-

-Precisely.-

-And…-

-Yeah, they didn’t touch either my room or my sister’s. Our kingdoms surely looked as if previous burglars had already done the job in there.-

-You bastard.-

-And you know what? The funny thing is that I actually had a gold replica of an ancient florentine coin in my room, sitting on the chest of drawers.-

-No shit.-

-Ok, it was buried under so much shit it was even hard for me to find it, but, hey, it’s not my job to score stuff during a break-in.-

-Indeed.-

-Anyway, besides the coin, there was also a quite precious bracelet-

-Seriously??-

-Sure. It was a gift for some birthday, a big occasion, I don’t remember. It’s a solid-gold monstrosity that I never wore, and never I will. Awful stuff. It was free from its velvety pouch, right there for the thieves to grab. Apparently, they didn’t even dare to face my mess.-

-That’s a life lesson. Now, you mentioned a Novel.-

The Novel

-Oh, indeed. My first self-published literary gem. I had a bunch of freshly printed copies stacked on the living room table. They couldn’t miss it! It was there, right in their faces!! I mean… what if I was the next Shakespear in town?? What if on that table was the Modern Othello???-

-Mate…-

-They didn’t even touch it. Nothing. I found it back exactly in the same position. No one even flickered through the pages. I was so disappointed.-

-I bet.-

-My Best Seller to be… not even burglars were interested in it.-

-Come on mate, don’t take it personally. They couldn’t know. Those people are just yokels, rednecks, whatever.-

-…-

-…-

-Yet, I wish they stole my book.-

-I hear your pain.-

-Thanks… you’re a real friend.-

-Anytime, mate.-

NOTE: This story has been injected with Radiohead quotes. Find them all and you’ll win a marvellous prize. (No you won’t. Sorry, there is no prize.)