Twenty Something
By aspidistra
- 458 reads
Twenty-Something.
It's not very often that one turns twenty. Once in a lifetime, another
landmark on the perpetual M-way ride we all make. Greater than nineteen
but not quite twenty-one. So here I find myself in the knell of
adolescence - the final curtain on the teenage years is about to fall,
as tomorrow I reach this hallowed age. Mourning for lost youth, or
confidently striding into my adult life aside, I still haven't solved
the riddle. The conundrum my father had set me a few days ago, when
solved, and only then do I get my birthday present - the keys to the
sparkling Renault Clio, it's headlights gleaming like lizard eyes next
to his Rover on the drive.
Two decades, a score - well, it's a long time or so it's seemed - it's
seemed forever, but that's from my perspective you see - a mere acorn
splash in the pond for most of you oldsters, mere plankton in the
oceans of time. Mind you it's been hard work getting here, through the
plagues of teenie acne, the trials of puberty and the curse of becoming
so very self-aware. Tomorrow marks the watershed, tomorrow takes me
further into oldsterdom, tomorrow I'll become one of those dreaded
twenty somethings!
So how about the riddle then, this cryptic conundrum the wise one has
set? Well, it's in the form of a number of questions - twenty questions
need you ask? Each of the questions has a numerical answer and
supposedly draws on the vast amount of trivial and inconsequential
knowledge I've accumulated during my years.
For example -
Q - "How many sides does a Rhombus have?"
A - "Four"
Or
Q - "In nursery rhyme folk lore how many blackbirds were baked in the
pie?"
A - Four and twenty or 24, of course -
Yes, easy you may think but that's just the start, as for the rest of
them, well you don't want to know. You simply wouldn't believe!
Then at the end of the questions, Father has created an obtuse
algebraic equation utilising all the answers which have also been
lettered thus i.e. Q1 = A, Q2 = B, etc for some, others just using the
numbers to subtract, add or multiply in the rest of the equation, if
you get the idea. After I've completed the maths then the riddle will
be solved and in theory the keys to the spanking new Clio will at last
be mine. Yes, pity I'll allow you to feel for me for being so
unfortunate to have been brought into this world by a man who obtains
such perverse gratification from such folly.
That afternoon, I spent hours finding answers to the questions - the
car was to be mine tomorrow at any cost! But there comes a time when
enough is enough. Enough ruminating on the riddle for now, this was to
be my last ever night as a teenager. The hounds of oldsterdom were
snapping on my heels, but they would not have me yet! I was to go out,
the final stand of my teenage years had to be made. I called up a few
of my friends. I was to shoot some pool at Reilly's Emporium and quench
my thirst with sickly alcopops for the last time ever as a 'teenage
dirtbag'.
Morning came and I woke into the new era, my score of years complete. I
looked at the half empty bottle of 'Mad-Dog' next to my bed, grappling
with the hangover I had to share this brave new start with. God, never
again - now I've entered this new dawn of maturity I'll have to start
drinking Smeaton's Mild or some other oldster brew. I got up and
yawned, it was beginning to soak in - I was now a twenty-something.
Apprehensively I looked in the mirror for those telltale oldster signs,
a fresh wrinkle on my brow? Had the glimmer of youth been sapped from
my eyes?
Now there was just one question left unanswered in the riddle - I
racked my sore head. I'd never get it! Then it came - the flash of
divine inspiration from nowhere.
The riddle now was now nearing completion - I could almost hear the
ignition firing as I slip on to those PVC seats and turn those keys.
That's it - all the clues had been realised, the numbers assembled in
the equation and ready to be computed. The maths wasn't as difficult as
I feared, at one stage I thought I'd have to consult my book of
logarithms but no - he hadn't been that cruel, not this time.
Frantically, I press in the digits on my pocket calculator, wiping my
brow as I repeat it just to make sure - then check and double check
again. Now the confidence of success welling inside me, I scribble down
the answer on the bottom of my cigarette packet and walk into the
oldster's bedroom a proud man with two decades behind me. My dad, he
wishes me a happy birthday and then he's just there smiling, before he
quips,
"And the answer to the riddle?"
I pause for a moment, trying not to crease over, "And the answer, the
answer is T............................"
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