music to go with the story: anything by Marc Bolan
Some eight years ago, the editors of Dutch counterculture magazine Tablet asked its collaborators – whom I counted myself amongst – to write about 2012. At the time, I had never heard of Mayan prophecies and end-of-the-world beliefs which were not directly coupled with Punk's no future expectations. I had in fact no idea why the year 2012 might be worth a special theme issue. So I simply set out writing about people eight years into the future and I called my story Overtime. See for yourself if the title holds true today.
Miss Sixty and Glitterboy found each other at the wedding of Noor and Mark, her granddaughter and his son, respectively. Miss Sixty discovered in him the humor and carelessness she had yearned for so many years. Glitterboy recognised the solemn belief in playfulness he would never possess. Miss Sixty wore a long, wide skirt of unbleached cotton with some last half century decisive headlines printed on. Over it an elegant silk blouse with poppy motifs carefully hiding the corset holding firm her no longer young and slender body. Her beautiful brown hair was a wig and her boots had started hurting as soon as she stepped out of her residential care appartment. Glitterboy was sitting opposite her in the half circle of guests gathered round the happy couple. He admired her timeless appearance. If she really belonged to the first generation, then she had shrewd ways of covering it. He had never shared bed with an original hippie girl and he wondered if he might get the chance today, as imperfect as it would be considering his present physical condition.
Glitterboy gave miss Sixty a half smile. The first pearls of sweat threatened to break through his camel coloured skin plaster. Mark could have informed him the ceremony would be held under studio lights, he might not have chosen his 100% lycra funk blouse with fake snake skin blazer then. He observed Mark's mother playing the outdated punk poetress. A double dose of tranquilizers and a big, fat joint to be sure beyond responsibility from the get go, he thought. The original hippie across from him just moved her legs, allowing him to read some of the headlines. John Lennon Shot Dead, War In The Gulf, Bush Names Rogue States. It seemed to be getting hotter all the time. Glitterboy started needing a shot and a cigarette. He touched the silver flask in his pocket. A quick visit to the bathroom looked the preferred
solution. Why the stupid half circle to make everything look susceptible?
Miss Sixty inspected her daughter Joni. She couldn't be too pleased with the situation. Joni had visited India on her mother's advice and had returned full of warm feelings and pregnancy. Joni was dressed in a brown leather bikini with rainbow coloured drapings over her shoulders. Her wrists and ankles were covered in jewelry and her hair was done with African style beads. She didn't look the forty years she would soon become, miss Sixty had to admit. It of course ran in the family. She herself had been all wrinkle free well into her fifties, and still today not many people knew she was enjoying her pension.
That weird guy on the other side was winking at her. Or was he just trying to get the sweat out of his eyes? He seemed to be hot under the bright lights. His perfect skin and the matching piercing eyes were all make-up, miss Sixty noticed. Quite a lot, in fact. He probably had lots to hide. He looked the original Marc Bolan groupie, with drinking problem and sexuality crisis included. She went about the other guests, mostly friends in suits. That modern desire to be discrete and watchful was unbearably boring, miss Sixty thought. She sighed and held down a stabbing pain in her kidneys. She had be getting used to that one lately.
Everything seemed so long ago! She still lived every day like the first one and time used to pass her by inadvertently, but the antique seventies icon reminded her of her true age. Could he be Noor's new father-in-law? And the lowdown punky loser a couple of seats further, could she be the mother? She should perhaps have a talk and share a joint after the offical stuff had ended.
Glitterboy could never have become anybody else, since Bolan was the hippest thing about when he hit eleven years old. Punk was nice, but he already had a belief and he felt too old anyway to ever again follow other people's ideas. He remembered how ridiculous in his mind those second generation hippies had been who began frequenting the late eighties' house parties dressed in their parents' opinions. The woman in the brown bikini looked the specimen. That was then, though. Now he couldn't care less what people looked like or believed in, as long as it wasn't too negative. Time itself perhaps wasn't what it once had been. Nobody died from old age these days, only accidents and disease took their toll. Everything which had ever been invented kept happening again, since people usually do not forget their thoughts, creating a multi-coloured noise house along the way.
He noticed a flash of pain going over the old hippie's face. Not that young any longer, are we?
Miss Sixty had got fed up with the whole sherade. Her kidneys begged for soft sofas to sink down into, with a cup of herbal tea and a big, fat joint, quietly contemplating the party. And the Bolan groupie were allowed at her side to tell what's driving him. But first get rid of her back pain. Something comfortable might have looked the smarter idea on a long day as today, but she hadn't been able to withstand the desire to expose her triumph. Look at me, I'm happy, you're just healthy, or whatever it is you are. Had they ever done anything stupid, apart from listening to their parents? Then again, she admitted, there were so few of them while so few of the elder ones would let go of their childhood dreams. It must be hell being young today. All they could hope for was sit in together and wait for a miracle solution. No wonder Noor was making the wrong choice, she was destined to do so by the world she grew up in. Could they finally move on to the informal festivities where guests take off their boots, by the way?
High time for a glass, Glitterboy meanwhile was thinking. Who knows there was more than miniral water to be had and he got a chance to have some fun with miss hippie and the thirty something next generation, her daughter perhaps? He regretted having cemented his face with timeless cream. Sweat was now rushing down his cheeks through canyons carving up his mask. Suddenly he wasn't quite so sure everything kept happening again. The damned heat was burning the last remains of youth off his bones.
He feared he was hopelessly dicrediting miss hippie with his presence. He always felt that way with older people about, as if his decay was mocking their good health. It was his duty, his one task in this life, to be always younger than hippies. He needed miss Sixty's pain to hold back the tears in front of these wholesome young people. Forty years ago to date he had become Glitterboy in a magical coincidence of red wine, a girl's hot kiss, a cigarette and a radio playing the right choice of music on a long summer night. Never had he needed anything else for arousel and now he was sitting here, like his own corpse on a June day in 2012. Forty years overtime. Glitterboy both laughed and cried in his final moment. Who cared anyway. Wildly stroking he started wiping the mess off his face and created a much bigger mess, to the delight of a growing number of guests.
Miss Sixty felt waves of love crashing on her corset.
