Me and the young ones

3. Morning

I woke up by a noise not knowing where I was for a second. I saw the Lenin poster stare back at me and remembered - I was in my cousin Neil's anarchist housemate Rick's room. With my sense of place sorted I located the sound of beating coming from another room.

"Yeah yeah don't get all uncool and heavy, hey why are you punching me? I'm not the alarm clock."

"No but you set it up NEIL!! You know I need my sleep to function properly, but I guess you dwell in happiness making life miserable for me?!"

"Ouch, ouch. You seem to function very fine Rick. And you know sleep gives you cancer."

I wondered if I was still in a dreamy state and making the surreal conversation up, then reminded myself that this jargon was completely normal here.

"Quit shagging, you bastards! it's only eleven o'clock!!"

Vyvyan's response made me alert. Eleven? How could I have slept for so long? I threw away the black blanket painted with peace symbol and jumped up from the bed, landing on the loose floorboard sending it flying. Damn, this whole house was literally falling apart.
I opened the door cautiously and looked out - you could never know what you would encounter. Then I snuck off to the door I assumed was the bathroom. I opened it and managed to see Rick talking to himself in the mirror before I closed again. Luckily I didn't see anything else.

"Neil, it's occupied! I was here first so get lost!!" he yelled.

"Sorry I didn't know you were there."

The door creaked open and I was greeted by Rick wearing only a bathrobe, smirking.

"Sorry, I didn't know you were there" he said.

I rolled my eyes. "Are you done soon?"

"How urgent is it? I mean you are welcome in."

"I can wait."

"I take VERY long time in the bathroom you know."

"I figured, what are you even doing? Practicing poems in the mirror?"

The quick no combined with his embarrassed expression said the exact opposite of no. Then Vyvyan came striding and pulled Rick right out of the bathroom by the collar, causing him to fall down.

"Vyvyan, the lady here was ahead of you in the queue!!" Rick bounced up and yelled at the door that shut in front of him, glaring red in the face from anger and from hitting it on the floor. Three seconds later Vyvyan came out finished, punching Rick down to the floor again passing by and I took my chance to slide in.

Well that was smooth. I made sure to lock the door before I turned around to inspect the bathroom. It was hands down the most terrible room I had seen in this house, or in my life. It could be summed up in that the bathtub was full of a black sludge. I held back a gag, determined to spend as little time in here as possible.

After the bathroom escapade, I went down to the kitchen where Rick and Vyvyan sat by the table. I wondered why they sat together so close when they despised each other so. Apart from the times Vyvyan would hurt Rick as much as possible with all sorts of things and Rick would retaliate in furious rage, they could almost be taken as friends.

"Swine... R, I, C, K" Vyvyan spelled out as he scribbled something in a newspaper. I guess he was making a crossword. Yet reading or writing did not seem to be his forte.

"Look, there's only three letters, Rick won't fit"  Rick explained.

"Then I'll write Rik, shall I."

"What a stupid name, noone spells it like that."

I wouldn't have expected them making a crossword in peace, I catched myself smiling. Standing on the floor I felt hunger creep up - if I cleaned a little as a thank you for being here, I might be able to grab some food unnoticed. And cleaning was something they definitively needed. I looked around, not even knowing where to start. I saw some glass splitters and an empty cornflakes package that I picked up and threw in the trash. Then I found a relatively clean piece of table cloth that I started to scrub the sink with. I turned to pick up the dishes on the table but was met with two shocked faces.

"What are you doing?" Vyvyan gasped.

"You may never have heard of it before, but I'm cleaning" I said, unsure why they reacted the way they did.

"You can't clean the kitchen, Marie" Vyvyan continued. It'll lose all its character!"

Rick agreed, suddenly they were like the best of friends ganging up on me. "We never clean the kitchen! That's what being a student is all about!"

I can see that I thought. "In that case, I don't want to be a student" I dropped the plates I was holding onto the floor. They didn't take any notice of it.

"You're a student? In what?" Rick asked, now nervous as if he decided to start flirting.

"Literature."

"Is that like, books?" Vyvyan said. "I like books."

"Yes, but they read them instead of filling up the toilet with them" Rick told Vyvyan, then turned back to me with a voice noticeably raised several octaves.

"Do you read any poems? What's your favourite?" His eyes sparkled with the question.

"That's a tough one.. but I love the young ones."

"YOU DO?" Rick jumped out of the chair bursting into some kind of overdramatic song, showing off as usual:

"The young ones
Darling, we're the young ones
And the young ones
Shouldn't be afraid
To live, love
While the flame is strong
(Vyvyan looked at me from behind Rick, pointing questioningly at his own fist. I shook my head)
For we may not be
The young ones very long"

"I meant the one by Sterling Allen Brown.." I said.

Rick cleared his throat and sat down again, smiling innocently.
"Yes ofcourse, that's also a good one."

"Are you singing Cliff Richard again? Is that even a poem? It was good but.."

"Ahhh for satan's sake, could we stop talking about poetry for five bloody minutes!!" Vyvyan squealed, punching himself in the face with a cricket bat to underline each syllable. Where did he get all his things from?

"Sure, I don't know about you guys but I'm hungry" I said.

Rick switched right back to his mocking mood.
"Well, who's fault is that? Where is bloody Neeeiil when you actually need him??"

"Yes I'm STARVING here!"' Vyvyan yelled, addressing the second floor.

"Are you waiting for Neil? Why don't you just fix your own breakfast?"

They just looked around blandly, appearantly not having a good answer. I sighed and opened the fridge. This would be a challenge.

"No Marie, you can't cook and clean, you're confirming the stereotype of a woman!" Rick said running up behind me. I don't know if it was my hunger or if I was tired of Rick's political correctness, probably a combination, but I turned around and gave him a right cross.

"How about that then, enough stereotype breaking for you?"

"I think you just broke my nose" he whimpered.

"Just like a girl Rick, perfect!" Vyvyan laughed.