The 45° Boy
Unfortunately it wasn’t one of those happy occasions. It was far from a typical birthday celebration where a chubby boy with pink chicks is surrounded by its schoolmates wearing a big smile accepts all kinds of presents wrapped in fancy paper. A party where an old guy like me sits on a couch bored to death but all the others seem to have fun. That particular boy didn’t have any friends. Non-the less the family estate was still very crowded with elder relatives and people above forty. The majority of the other guests were fans of the books of his father. Professor’s Hans Johnson Fiction work had become widely popular when his third book “Anorexia Nervosa in Goldfishes and how to Deal with it” was first published. Then a second success followed by the book “Dream Interpretation for Female Iguanas” When I arrived that day there were all sitting in the living room discussing about his last published article at The FAKE magazine “The diagnosis of bipolar syndrome in leeches”. As if that wasn’t enough the Professor kindly offered to bring Magda the bipolar leech herself in a glass jar. I instinctively looked at the boy’s side. Alex was far from a typical boy at his age. More known as the 45° Boy rather than under his actual name with a profound reason; the boy when standing was leaning in a weird angle instead of standing vertically to the ground. According to a friend of mine the boy looked like a half fallen tree that the wind had torn down after a heavy night storm. It was as if the law of gravity had made a weird exception while the boy’s diagonal figure crossed the room to sit in its darkest corner. Everybody tried hard not to stare at him pretending that their martini glasses were the center of their existence. Alex himself did not feel the least comfortable inside that crowd. People weren’t making it easier of him to relax either. In an audible distance some of them were already whispering to some new quests about some possible explanations about the boy’s unique condition. The family doctor once mentioned that the gravity center in the boy’s body was somehow misplaced. To most people his condition was described as “a simple abnormality” and sometimes as “a true paradox” to all kinds of non-scientific explanations. Not far from the walls of the professor’s house the most common phrase was “freak of nature”. The boy was isolated from other youngsters because of his diagonal figure. Although he was always trying to get the least attention by hiding behind dark corners that habit of his created the opposite result. As his head picked out he looked like spying. Then all the conversations around him would suddenly stop, as both sides felt uncomfortable. His shyness would lead him to leave immediately. But that made others think in an even more suspicious manner. While I stared at him momentarily my eyes started wondering inside the crowded living room. The professor was proudly holding a jar with the bipolar leech, waving at my side to view his new discovery. As a man with a weak stomach and not the least interest in the mood swings of a bloody leech I found as an easy excuse the nature’s private calling to use the bathroom, avoiding successfully the introduction. Satisfied with myself I walked towards the long corridor that led to the private rooms, the guestrooms and the toilet. It was dark and from the end of this long room a pale light was coming. There has a half open door. Willingly assuming that half open doors usually do not hide any dark secrets I faulty guessed that this one would probably lead to the bathroom. So I followed the light trying not to step on Freud the house cat that was following me suspiciously since I had left the main room. The door squeaked as I leaned against it. It was neither the guest room nor even the Johnson’s bedroom. Because if it was any of the above I would had closed the door quietly and I could immediately returned back in the party pouring an other cocktail for myself and trying to avoid the cats the goldfishes, the leeches, the professor and his fans for the rest of the night. But that room was something else. It was the boy’s room. I breathed deeply, looked around guiltily and I slipped inside. A fast gaze within its interiors and you could immediately understand that an adult had decorated the room. The maid of the house had also done a good job keeping neat. The sterile cleanness had removed anything that could reveal any personality at the prefixed space. I was disappointed; the 45 boy° was and would be a mystery figure. None of his thoughts would reveal to my curious eyes not now not ever. I was ready to leave when Freud entered the room and jumped on the bedside table. He gazed with a look of cattish disapproval. I ignored him. The tiny furniture had a small drawer. I hesitated for a second and then I opened it. Inside there was a card deck, a yo-yo, some colored gaffer tapes and a big pile of drawings. The drawings had more or less the same subject. City landscapes that everything was leaning 45 degrees. Somewhere in the big pile was a more detailed drawing that showed a general view of a 45° city. The diagonal complexity of the certain drawing made me dizzy. In a moment I could walk through a park with 45 trees then cross an odd water spring that spread water in various odd directions. A small diagonal path appeared that led to a busy highway full of 45° cars intercepted by 45° people crossing it. I passed through the city hall and then I reached the old city with its paved street and the tall 45° towers. A big 45° woman carrying her groceries in a brown paper bag looked weird at me since I was the only one walking straight. I ignored her and I kept walking to the top of the weird complex of castles and pathways. Then l looked at the diagonal horizon. The 45° city was unraveling till it reached the sea. In a glimpse I returned to the bland room. I put the drawings back, closed the door behind me and walked back to the living room. The 45° boy was still sitting all alone in the world of horizontal and vertical lines. I felt sad for him. Not because he was leaning in 45° but because his world as was far away from this living room or from this city as from anyplace in our world. I quietly escaped the crowded room just to return a year later at the exact date. No matter how hard I tried I could not see the boy anywhere. I sat disappointed in the couch between two rather famous anthropologists that for hadn’t spoken to each other for years and there I saw him. On top of the old piano there was the framed photo of Alex with a backpack. He was looking kind of tired but still very content in front of the Pizza tower. He and the tower leaning in opposite directions made a short of a pair. Before I could realize it I was smiling too.
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According to the sound of the old city clock the time was 8.00. That was not much of a fact except that in that particular day I had to be at 7.00 in the house of the professor Hans Johnson Fiction for the celebration of his son’s birthday.