Story of Boris Popescu

‘…Boris supper is ready… can’t you hear me.’ Boris sat up on the bed and went to the dining room. – pork tail stew… the local shop was having a sale on pig’s tails again. It is going to last at least for the next three days.

His mother has the habit of saying ‘Will I ever see grand children?’ ‘Before you realize you turn forty. You should be dutiful to your mother.’

Shortly after the meal, mother starts doing the ironing. ‘Will you let the hems down on my trousers? I feel they are a little short.’ ‘No way! They have to keep their length.’ The hems never touched the ground. The contrary, not only are they 10cm away from it; they also have substantial extra hard fabric folded internally. In the distant past, he used to ask why there was the extra fabric. Mother told him that it was essential as he would be growing. Needless to say that he was forced to wear the same trousers for years.

The house is always tidy and he has never seen a speck of dust in it. The most prominent feature in the lounge room is an immaculately polished photograph setting. His father was a coal miner, who worked for the family everyday and died in an accident. Boris was only nine years old at that time. The father’s complexion on the photo still has a golden brown radiance, yet Boris has always been pale. All his attempts of getting a suntan have failed. However, his skin would turn in to a lobster like color when exposed to the sun. Subsequently it peeled off and returned to his former pallid color. Even trying to apply a tanning spray proved to be futile.

The memory of his father taking him to uncle Nicolai’s house is still present. He admired his uncle. A stuffed animal head was the main focal point in the lounge room, and the uncle spoke proudly on how he had killed the animal. ‘I want to become a strong man like my uncle.’ It was after Boris has met uncle Nicolai that he started mimicking like a marksman. He did practice shooting everyday near an old remaining watchtower and enjoyed climbing up there and gazing into the clouds.

His life has not been eventful except that there is a column going through his room from the bottom to the ceiling for no apparent reason. When he got into mischief, his parents used to tie him up on this column; the space between face and wall was extremely narrow, therefore he still suffers from claustrophobia. The column illuminates his room in the night because it was originally meant to be a streetlight, thus he has never experienced a good sleep. It just happened to go through his room because of an architect’s failure to remove it from the design.

Boris occasionally experience happiness by gazing at beautiful clouds from the tower and having a potato and milk soup without onions.