6 years
Mirosław Leśniak
6 years
Despair gushing with tears. That was the first reaction of Mal to initial day of school. It was bringing pity on the faces of adults. After first cries Mal started experiencing education with no emotion. Coming back home, supper, television, hygiene, sleep.
Another day came. Mal went to school in companion of freshly met co-students. They talked a bit and the classes started. During one of the class breaks a few guys flew to him. Mal wasn’t able to understand why had they kicked him in the crotch while yelling vulgar insults. He never complained about that.
End of the classes. Mal spread his wings and along with other boys they went in direction of their homes. This time they had heavy bags full of books with them. He’ll never get used to that. Firs homework under supervision of his parents. Supper, TV, hygiene, sleep.
First free of school weekend. With passion he was building all kinds of constructions using Logo, was reading improper humor magazines , comic books, daub computer game press and painting. Music with silence alternately reigned his sister's room. His brother was in army.
* * *
Vanilla homogenized cheese and a fresh roll. Best breakfast ever. In addition to that, a mug of fresh coco. Mom always made sure that kids are prepared for school. She worked herself in another schooling place. Dad was trading chariot parts all days long.
Winter came, morning flights to school were being performed in the dark. Coming backs had no sun shining neither. This time it was a bit different at home. Mom wasn’t home but there was dad and one of his friends. They were talking, unknown what about. Dad told Mal to go to his room then poured something from a bottle. Mal started taking care of his business in his room. Playing, reading and homework.
The homework. He hated it. They were forcing him to do it. It was dragging him away from the things he loved. He learned fast to cheat on ones who were forcing him to do it. He did everything possible to not get into the schoolbooks. They were taking that precious time left after school.
School wasn’t all bad, it turned out that despite few bullies it was possible to have fun. Unfortunately, the consequence was disapproval of red teachers who, within range of penalty were making complains about Mal, or, asked questions resulting with F. After all there should be law and order in school so kids can learn.
* * *
It was year AD1995. All that happened before was still happening but in a more advanced form. On Friday 13th, Mal landed on the porch of his home. He opened the door to his apartment, entered his room, thrown the heavy bag on the floor. He got shocked. He noticed that there are computer components laying on his desk. That released excitement. He had no clue how to turn it on, however, a friend of his had a computer for a longer time and knew an IT guy. Mal asked his father to call him. That one-eyed pest shown up at his home that evening.
The one-eyed locked himself alone in Mal’s room for two hours and told to not disturb. After that time the computer was working, DOOS and Winblows 3.11 were operational. The pest told dad to pay for the service and the games then vanished in the dark of the night.
Puntium
75. 8MB RAM, 1GB drive, 1.44MB floppy station and a SVGA card. No
sound card nor CD-ROM at that point. Every time he entered invalid
command the system was replying with “what are you doing, idiot”.
Lovely. At least quite interesting games appeared over there in a
magical way.
* * *
No one came up with an idea to teach Mal, lets say, coding. It was school that was supposed to teach stuff and it had no IT class. IT was being told on the streets. They were flying from the apartment to apartment. Everyone held a box of floppies in their hands. Software called “RAR” allowed splitting compressed files into floppies, in its lovely, blue interface. Thanks to that there were games to play. Dom, Wurcraft 2. Moortal Koombat 2 were some of the popular ones. Warms+ also was OK. Mal played at home whenever he was able to. He played and played. Usually alone. Because meetings with buddies outside usually meant some forms of violence. Good there was fun tho. Fun was helping surviving the worst.
* * *
Not everyone was able to get as good grades as the daughter of a big chariot driving school. Parents were not happy. Passions of Mal resulted in low effects in education. It turned out he’s overstimulated, later on they started calling this condition “ADD”. That meant more complains and Fs. At that point the school desks started being covered with sophisticated drawings of fantastic characters and places. Janitors every day after school carefully cleaned the desks so the students can peacefully use education.
During one of the class beaks one of the female friends flew over and asked “Does a nut shot really hurts that much”. Mal confirmed. She flew to her friends, came back and said “I checked! Hurts like hell!”. They started liking each other. And they kept on liking each other. Her name was Nat.
During the 6th year they were flying around their apartment building. Mal got informed that that Mar and were at Mat’s apartment with older friends. They played strip poker then. It turned out a bit shocking to Mal. That happened at the end of 6th school year of the elementary school. Last day of the last semester Mal and Or had their first beer in life, had some pizza. Sun was shining upon them, they spent some time with friends and generally it was fun.
On the summer break he started playing Megic. The player he hanged around with told him the basics of the game play. Mal knew english good enough to understand that game. One day of the vacations Pav told that he would like to try marijuana with him. Mal agreed, the next day they smoked grass with older friends in the school area. They got baked like pigs. Junior high was already lurking after the vacations. He lost his sanity over there.