pocket-change [era x florentine]

institutions freak me out. pretty much any organised, hierarchical structure has the same effect on me. they make me uneasy, raise too many questions. they are, without exception, cultish. somebody must be crushed underfoot to allow someone else to stand tall. it is a requirement, a paradoxical truth. without someone else’s failure, there is no metric for success. there is no power without the powerless. there are no rich without a struggling underclass, living hand to mouth, peering in through the windows and gaping at the chandeliers. good things cannot exist without suffering, and so i am cynical of anywhere that promotes excellence, opulence, or splendour. it is always a cover for oppression.

i don’t think the kids here are smart enough to wrap their brains around this concept, stuffed as they are with fancy cheese, like little olives wearing ties. they are blind. it is better for them, i understand, to face up to god with their palms out, ready to receive, grateful and thankful and sweet. they take, from this horrendous old building in particular, pocketfuls of knowledge, carefully created so as to put very particular ideas in their fragile little heads. they write notes frantically, i am sure. they make connections. they travel in packs. even here, these young creatures form groups and couplets, walk in clusters as though afraid that they will be vulnerable if caught alone. he is alone, though. he walks decidedly, following a predetermined path. i almost think he will walk right past me. but he stops. 

“i don’t think you’re supposed to be there.” ah. it is surefire, the way people with so much will be so quick to defend what is theirs. they are territorial. they walk around looking for those that don’t belong, if only for the joy of casting them aside. he is accurate. there is an alarm in his head that has been triggered by my perch on the gate. this is not my institution. i am the bug under his foot that allows him such a vantage point. 

“is there a reason, or are you just a bit odd?” for a moment i am genuinely unsure if he is being intentionally hostile, or if he is just a pretentious fool. i inspect his features. i land decisively on the second option. he appears so inflated with self-assurance that i am endeared by it. it is cute, how little he knows. i have the peculiar urge to keep him as a pet. 

he speaks again, still without waiting for any response from me. i let him get it all out, like a teenager with a hangover. “i don’t mind either way, but i’d like to know.” the universe owes him answers, he seeks my explanation as though he is entitled to it. i have opened my mouth to respond when he continues again, a cherry on the top of his blundering introduction: “era, by the way, if you want to trade names.” 

i laugh, pitching my tone so that i sound charmed by his gregariousness. instead i am laughing at his name, which is stupid. i wish he’d given me the chance to guess it. i’d probably have gotten there within ten tries, just by looking at him. i bet it’s short for something equally gluttonous. i must remember to find out, later.

i extend my hand, grin up at him demurely. “flo,” i offer him. “i was just waiting for my mother and father. they’re on a tour of the school. trying to decide if they should send me here, or up the hill.” i speak quickly, excitedly. “we just moved to this side of the district. i was going to go for a walk, but i don’t really know my way around yet.” 

all of this is a lie. i have no mother and no father and no money and i stopped turning up at school sometime around my twelfth birthday. i know every street of this side of the district, they are etched in my brain. the lies are smooth, they come hot and fast. i slip into my affected little accent easily, i have done this so many times before. she is me, she is just another version of me, in another life. 

“what do you think? should i enrol here? do you like it?” 

i glance over my shoulder, make a face that is intended to represent indecision; oh, no, the choices you must make when you have the world at your feet! surely, he will relate to this, how hard it must be to exist in this space, the burden of it all. i jump lightly down from the gate. once i am on the ground, he is taller than me. i look up at him expectantly. 

if privilege relies upon powerlessness, then he needs me, fundamentally. he cannot exist without me. it is a simple equation: he is here because of me, in a way. i wonder if he deserves it. if he is good, maybe he will get to keep it.