Because it’s the law.
So I had no idea what to do because nobody told me what to do, and when that happens I get very worked up and I’m not supposed to get worked up regarding my state of health. So I didn’t get worked up and instead this is what I said:
‘In our good old Cemetery
A dead man hangs from every tree.’
Meaning it was very humorous.
Because my Grandfather from Detva knew lots of humorous sentences like this and he always used to say them whenever he heard someone say some word. And if people said one of those words for which he had a humorous sentence he would always say it. For example, when he heard the word Cemetery this is what he used to say:
‘In our good old cemetery
A dead man hangs from every tree.’
Or when someone said the Hungarian greeting kezét csókolom this is what he always said:
‘Kezét csókolom, how d’you do?
That’s in Hungarian, so sod you!’
Or when he heard a bell ringing this is what he always said:
‘Ding dang dong,
All Jews pong.’
That was always very humorous. And that’s why I thought that Darinka Gunárová would laugh if I said:
‘In our good old Cemetery
A dead man hangs from every tree.’
But she didn’t laugh at all and instead she just shook her head a little and that made all the butterflies flap their wings.
It was very weird.
The one thing I’ll never get is what those butterflies on her head were for. But I didn’t want to ask why she was wearing a thing on her head like nobody else ever wears on their head so I didn’t ask.
And after that this is what Darinka Gunárová said:
‘I’ll be off now.’
Meaning she would be off now.
And then I said:
‘I’ll be off, too’
Meaning I would be off, too.
And after that Darinka Gunárová left. So I left, too But I went down the One-Way Street the right way, because otherwise I would be in trouble due to being a road user.
Darinka Gunárová could go wherever she wanted because she’s not a road user.
But I am a road user and that’s why I get praised by everyone.
Because I always get lots of praise from everyone, including from Karol Gunár (PhD Social Sciences) because he has always praised me a lot, but he praised me most of all when that thing happened with Tonko Szedílek because I reported it to him. Then he patted me on the back and said that I was the best boy in Komárno because I’d told him everything.
The reason why I told him everything was because it was supposed to be me that was meant to go up the Water Tower with Tonko Szedílek to start with, because he always said that he would take me along when he went Up There on his fourteenth birthday and that he would show me how happy people were Up There because of their happy lives.
The thing is that the only way to get up the Water Tower was to climb up the lightning rod but Tonko said that we would manage because his Father would be there to help us. Of course, Tonko was very good at P.E. but I was excepted from P.E. and that’s why I didn’t know what was what and why and how.
I have no idea why we were supposed to climb up the Water Tower and why it was the law for him to go up there to meet his Father. Nobody ever told me why he had to go up there and all I knew was that it was meant to be on his birthday regarding being fourteen years old. Because Tonko’s birthday was regarding being born.
I also have a birthday every year. Because it goes without saying that everyone in the world has their birthday every year. Even people who’ve died have their birthday every year.
Tonko’s birthday always used to be on the first of September and the way you could tell was because it was the first day of school because school always started on the first of September. And that’s how I always remembered.
My birthday is on the twelfth of November. That’s a lovely date for a birthday. I’m very happy that I was born on the twelfth of November. And that’s why my birthday is always on the twelfth of November.
My Mum used to buy lottery tickets all her life and she always picked the numbers regarding the birthdays of everyone in my family but she never won. She used to say that she had spent so much money on lottery tickets that if she got all that money back she could buy a car.
Except that she never got any money back, so we never had a car.
Even though we were very economical.
My Grandfather from Detva once said that there was this man in Detva who had won first prize in the lottery but then all sorts of bad things happened to him, so he became an alcoholic and got divorced. And then everyone was happy that all those bad things happened to him even though he had won first prize in the lottery. And everybody said it served him right.
I said it served him right, too.
I once won too but not in the lottery, but due to collecting waste paper and that was when I came top of the whole school because nobody else came more top than I did. And that’s when I got The Young Pioneer’s Heart and I was reported on the school radio because I came top.
That was very tiring because it wasn’t easy to win at all. Because I was always very well prepared for collecting because I would go around all the shopkeepers in advance asking them to put their waste paper aside for me and not to give it to anyone else except me. So when the collection date was announced I would already be well prepared but nobody else would be prepared and due to that I always came top in the whole school.
Because I’m very hard-working.
Ivana once won the first prize too but it goes without saying that she didn’t win due to collecting waste paper. The prize she won was regarding the piano. She won it in Hradec Králové. Hradec Králové is a Czech town. But that was when we still had Czechoslovakia so it was OK to win in Hradec Králové.
Then she got given all sorts of diplomas and medals and everyone said that she had a great feeling for the piano.
I said it, too.
But I’d like to see how Ivana would manage collecting cardboard anyway because all she is good at is the piano and she doesn’t have the strength to push the handcart, not even for two steps, let alone all the way to Recycling. And another thing I’d like to see her do is argue with that idiot Krkan from Recycling about lying and not taking it when it’s wet.
The thing is, I did report him to Karol Gunár (PhD Social Sciences) a long time ago, but all he said was that this was what we wanted, this was that Democracy of ours and now it was up to other people to sort out that idiot Krkan.
Because when we still had the Communist Party he could sort out everything because he was High Up and it was the law for them to sort everything out. And that’s why he sorted out Darinka Gunárová too, because I told him. Because he said I should always report everything to him. So then I always told him everything, and another reason why I always told him everything was because he always knew what to do and I wanted him to tell me what to do.
On that First School Day when it all happened Karol Gunár (PhD Social Sciences) was also in our school because he loved children and he was very kind in all sorts of other ways, too And that’s why he always got invited to the First School Day Assembly and he would stand on stage and say all sorts of things into the microphone.
Because that was the law for the High Ups.
The other children were not listening to what he was saying and some were misbehaving but I was listening because I was paying attention but then Darinka Gunárová and Tonko Szedílek distracted me when they told me that they were going up the Water Tower that night and that I shouldn’t tell anyone. I wanted to ask when it would be my turn to go up the Water Tower but they weren’t listening because they were just looking at each other and that’s why they didn’t listen to me.