Like every other Sunday, three contours sit on the table. The round cherry wood piece I bought at a flea market last month, is covered in dishes of baked potatoes and lamb, green salad (just for show), bread, artichoke dip (swimming in olive oil), roasted red peppers (swimming in balsamic vinegar), and fusilli with arrabbiata sauce.

“You see what a difference it makes when you make the sauce with fresh tomatoes?” My mother says satisfied while forking one piece of pasta.

“It doesn’t make a huge difference; it just takes ages to make.” I respond.

“Of course it does, it tastes like juicy tomatoes and fresh herbs. The store-bought jars taste like nothing,” she states as a matter of fact, “Right, Periklis?” she says while serving wine on my father’s half full glass.

The world swirls.

The sky, the trees, and the birds all move cyclically. Round and round I go, until everything becomes a blur; leaves and clouds are temporarily one. There is a light breeze from somewhere, and I feel it on my bare shoulders. That’s when then the bubbles appear, like mystical objects that make several of my friends squeal contentedly.

I hear commotion, but I do not care much.

I laugh, and I laugh until I cry.

The details, I was told to observe from birth, have been obscured. Now, shapeless objects blending into one another, as everything around me continues swirling. Such a waste of brain space, all these words describing things that are but aren’t.

Some loud mumbling inches closer, and the world slows again. I can see the bubbles, the grey sky, and then “It’s too fast! Stop this thing!” My mother exclaims.

“You should get some thinner curtains; there isn’t enough light in here. Right, Periklis?” Mother says while chewing her one piece of pasta twelve times, claiming it’s for better digestion, when asked – which never happens but she offers the information, regardless.

“Hmmm.” My father mumbles.

My apartment is, in fact, a small studio on the ground floor. It doesn’t get much light. Regardless, when my mother talks to her friends about me, she makes it sound so grand that I live abroad, in a beautiful three story redbrick. If she only knew what I did on the side to afford an apartment in Amsterdam.

“Periklis, you should help her paint soon.”

“Hmmm.”

“The landlord painted last month,” I snap.

She scoffs, “Your father can do a better job. Eat some bread, Periklis, here.”

I am suspended.

My dark blue puffer jacket lies on the metal handrail surrounding the outdoor skating park. It’s all thick marble with elaborate obstacles: halfpipes, cradles, hubbas, ledges; some easy, some challenging, and some very difficult. Like this funbox, and the metal railing I have been challenged to slide on.

It’s steep, very steep.

I take a deep breath, my brain says that I shouldn’t, but the boys expect me to fail, whilst I want to prove them wrong. I turn sideways trying to find my balance, readying myself to let my other foot off the ground. I do.

“It’s just a small bump. Ariana is fine.”

“I told her a dozen times not to go to that park; such boy things are not appropriate.” My mother whines.

“She is eleven, and she wants to try new things. I did her age.” The doctor says.

“I didn’t!” She retorts.

“If you hadn’t yelled, I wouldn’t have fallen. I was almost on the ground. Now we have to buy Cristina a new board.” I pout.

“Now it’s my fault you hurt yourself?”, her eyes widen like that of a colossal squid, “Let’s see what your father will say about that.”

“How much?” his voice echoes behind us.

“Probably 100 euros,” I say hesitantly.

His nostrils flare, “For a bloody -,” the doctor clears her voice, “- Fine,” he growls.

“How’s work?” That’s the only question my father asks whenever we meet.

“Busy, but good.” It’s the same answer I always give him.

“Busy is good. Do they pay you more now?” He says, taking a spoonful of pasta in his mouth and commencing to chew with an open mouth. My mother and I wince simultaneously.

“I’ve been there for six months, Pa,” I say sardonically.

“We paid a lot of money for your education.” He states.

I recoil my head and watch him. This is the man who has been working a manual (or so we have been told) 8am-7pm for twenty-five years, had me wear second-hand clothing for most of my childhood, and almost refused to send me to college because 1,200 euros a semester was too much money. While he wears the latest Montblanc and a tailored suit, in his free time.

“Here,” my mother says, and places additional salad on my father’s plate. “And take some more lamb, I served myself too much.”

The sand is soft; my fingers pinch the hot particles and release them, letting them rejoin the rest of their kind. On my bare legs, I balance a forbidden book; I have masked it with another so that my parents don’t realize. Not that they are readers, but mom gossips during PTA, and you never know.

In our mothers dismay, there is a new “book club” at school.

My legs clench, and I swallow hard. Some heat emanates from between them. What a strange sensation. I clear my throat and decide to go for a dive. I close the book(s), secure it (them) in my beach bag, and walk towards the shoreline. While I walk, I feel eyes on me. Is there something strange on my body? It’s just a body. Slim, flat, uninteresting.

I take a plunge into the lukewarm Mediterranean Sea, and when I ascend, I taste the saltiness on my lips. I swim as far as I can go, then swim back and repeat. My body is strong, but thankfully not muscly enough to raise any suspicions. As I strike forward and back, I notice that there are multiple bodies closing in, following, even smiling at me. Some of the boys are even cute. My legs clench once more.

When I get closer to the shore, I see her in the blue kaftan frantically waving at me to get out. She is waiting with a big open towel.

What am I five?

“You stupid girl!” She says while she wraps me with the towel. “You had to go reading this trash, they can see it on you!”

“What? What’s going on?”

“It’s what the words do to your body, budallaqe! (stupid girl!) Those boys think you are a whore!” She shouts for the world to hear.

“You always serve yourself too much, then you make him eat it,” I say absentmindedly.

“He is a man; he needs to eat. He works ten hours a day.” My mother barks.

“I do too, does that mean that I should eat double the portion?”

“You are a woman; if you continue eating this way, you will never marry.” She says, moaning a little as she shoves another piece of fusilli down her throat.

“You did,” The gravity of what I just said sank quickly, but I’m kind of done with her preaching, “How did you marry, considering you have always been overweight?”

“You are the reason I am overweight!”

My dad’s eyes play ping-pong, but he remains silent, as always.

“I doubt that.” I say scornfully.

He bounces over me like a monkey, sweaty, smelling like a sewer. To be fair, none of us knows what we are doing, except for some porn we’ve both watched and called research. He said that the ones with the two women and a man excited him the most, so I gave it a try. The whole time I was watching, I kept thinking the man had no place being there. He looked like a brute amongst soft lips and tender skin.

He asks me if it was okay for me, and I say, “It was really good.”

He asks if it hurt, and I say, “Not that much.”

He asks me if I need more paper to wipe off the fluid, and I say, “No.”

When I walk through the door, she is waiting on the couch. Her arms wrapped around her luscious chest, and one of her legs bounces on the bamboo floor. My father is snoring loudly next to her. She doesn’t look at me or say anything; she just watches some dancing competition on TV.

Unbothered, I start to ascend the stairs that lead to my room, and I hear, “Remember, to continue whoring, you must wear a condom. I will kick you out before letting you raise a bastard.”

“Did your mother kick you out?” I say and run upstairs. She, of course, doesn’t follow.

I watch her willfully. All I really want is to shove her face into the pasta bowl, just to see what her reaction would be. After all, Her Highness the Victim, looks good in red. But I won’t do her the favor of showing my agitation.

“I made the sauce with canned tomatoes, not fresh ones. I work, I don’t have the time to make the sauce from scratch, like you.” I say with a smirk.

My mother freezes, in disbelief. She is on her sixth chewing round, but she swallows anyway.

A frantic laughter bursts from my left side.

My mother and I abruptly turn and, disgusted, watch as pieces of fusilli escape my father’s mouth and fly everywhere.