Six Minutes of Rebellion

I’m listening to alt-rock. Two stops. Seven and a half minutes. I’ve got exactly two songs’ worth of time left for the last of my vanished teenage rebellion to flare up and reach its peak. It’s like when you’re craving something sweet and you scavenge through the cupboards until you find a single square of cheap compound chocolate. It was probably left there from last Christmas, but you eat it anyway, hoping that that persistent, itching craving will finally stop. Maybe it was meant for a traditional six-layer cake. The experience is indescribably different from what true longing would require, but it lulls the desire. Or perhaps, it only fans the flames.

In this strange, faux-adolescence, I watch the people of the subway. Through the spectacles of feigned indifference, everyone looks the same. Adults. Mostly. Piece by piece. And those who aren't, they just pretend to be something else. As if they haven’t been scrolling through TikTok for the past hour. As if they could truly immerse themselves in a Ken Follett novel between two subway stops. As if the straight-A student had to worry about their grade, or the truant about failing. It’s a forced play in our own personal soap operas. All bows and charms for the spectator called Life, with a few misplaced jokes, usually laughed at someone else’s expense. And I believe them. Every single one of them. Mine is a rock ballad, by the way: Simple Plan's "I'm Just A Kid." I won’t settle for a tacky pop hit. At least let the music be good.

I’ll get off at the Clinic station. There, I’ll shed this skin and slip back into the mediocre, almost-tranquil routine of the almost-thirty. There’s a rhythm to it, actually, to everything. In the child’s morning scream, in the way the used diaper thuds at the bottom of the bin. In the rattling of the subway, the slipstream beating against the glass. In the clicking of the escalator, in the rising melodic run as my head breaks the surface and the surging roar of the crowd floods over me on the street. Always changing, yet always the same.

My phone pings. A letter. I know exactly who it’s from. This is where the pieces of my composed reality shatter, and for the first time in a long while, I don’t reach for them. They scatter, they roll, light glimmers on them—it almost dazzles my eyes. These are fragments of a non-existent work of art, from a time that feels as though it wasn't even my own.

Am I true to myself? To the person I swore to at fourteen that I would never become? I could listen to classical music. Actually, I like that too. It’s one of those youthful pretensions I brought with me from high school instrument lessons. I enjoyed being conspicuous. But what is that, if not another desperate attempt to be different? In reality, that’s exactly what makes us so identical.

What does intensive self-knowledge do to a person? Three months ago, you lent me your headphones on the train. In a dream. I hadn’t thought of you for so long that I’d forgotten you existed. Your name had remained a cheap pun in a non-existent social circle. And then I had those headphones, and I promised to give them back on the return trip. But the train never came.

Then we walked. In the archives of a medieval university. The light shone through the mosaic, and I’m certain we made significant theoretical discoveries, just like we used to, dangling from a dried-out tree trunk over the river, disturbing "His Beaver-ness" in his daily life. To this day, I can smell the mud if I just think about it.

The tea. We had tea, too. In my dream. Because otherwise, I wouldn’t drink it. I hate tea. Well, let’s just say we aren't on speaking terms, it and I. It reminds me of the old, watered-down, unsweetened canteen swill that once made me sick at a crosswalk. You’re a master of teas. As you are of most things you do. Or did. Or rather, that’s how I remember you. I looked up with divine adoration at every measly sound that left your lips. After we fought, I watched the long, spider-like strides on the street for months, hoping you’d come across me and fate would settle our umpteenth, blood-earnest misunderstanding. But you never came.

We’ve been writing for a month now. After six years. Since then, I don’t dream of you. Not that I missed it, but at least the zombie apocalypse is back, spiced with some eighties roller disco. An interesting composition. We fight for survival by circling round and round under flashing lights. Perhaps it all has a symbolic meaning. Perhaps the disco is my destiny, and I’m running the same circles over and over again. As a friend of mine would say: Cursed Samsara. Too bad I can't even skate.

The whole thing is so intimate. It’s as if I’d opened a tap I’d planned to shut off forever, and it’s been flowing ever since. Just enough to be pleasantly digestible. Finally, I don’t look at you with awe. It’s as if that former majestic light no longer shines on you. Now you seem real, without filters. How much did I struggle with this as a child? There was nothing special about you, and yet I felt like the chosen one just because you rewarded me with your company. Meanwhile, I was terrified. At first, that one day you wouldn't be there. But I realized my true fear was that I would never feel as free again as I did on that dried-out log over the river. And yet, I made no effort to keep you at any cost.

I have a family now, and you have a girlfriend.

Of course, it would be different in person. Virtually, we are true wordsmiths, effortlessly dazzling one another. Allegories fly high, almost brushing the Sun; we’re outrunning Icarus himself. Only a letter written in an hour or two can be this witty, this ironic, this effortless. But in person? In person, I wouldn’t even know how to say hello.

Only one more stop. A burly figure in a trench coat gets on. His hood is over his face, dark clothes, black backpack. Perhaps his whole being is black. It doesn’t particularly affect me. It would be different around midnight, when only a few figures linger on the platform. Of course, the time of day wouldn't change the fact that he’s going to work, munching on a pastry, and playing chess online.

You resemble him. Or rather, the version of you in my head—one of them. But mostly the fourteen-year-old who initially tried to become invisible in the classroom, then suddenly became my best friend. For a while, at least. I don’t know when I became ripe for change. I don’t remember it. I remember the absence of it. Nostalgia is a strange thing. It’s like tearing open thousand-year-old wounds for fun, rejoicing in how much it hurts. At least you know you’re alive.

Would I recognize you out of a thousand?

I doubt it. This “it’s still only eight in the morning” but “I want to be home already,” “I want my bed” crowd dissolves me like caramelized sugar in coffee. I don’t even recognize myself. You have brown eyes and brown hair. That can be said for at least three-quarters of society, and it’s not even certain that the same portion of them is male.

How long have we been looking at each other?

I don’t know. I see you suddenly, and the recognition paralyzes me. You are a stranger, from a foreign land, with a foreign gaze. But your eyes really are brown. Your hair, too. I got the essential elements right, didn't I? It’s so strange to breathe the same air as you. This stale, overworked subway air, seasoned with the 8:00 AM aroma of every single commuter. You arrive in my moment a few minutes late. I see the gears turning, and I see what you’re thinking. This will be a defining moment. Not just for this day. For a lifetime.

I need a good greeting. There it is: “Hi.”