Tik-llakat

If I ever have hated something, it's this thing. Life in Peja has been peaceful, until around two weeks ago... streets started suddenly to fill with these things. They are strings with a ball at each end. And they make noise. And they cost 50 cents. You put that plastic ring in your middle finger and when moving your hand, balls hit against each other and make extremely annoying noise. It's tik-llakat, and its only function is to make irritating noise. And that it succeeds to do.

For me, tik-llakat represents everything bad, evil and disgusting. It is cheap, it's crap and it has no reason to exists. Yet it's so popular. Now, absolutely everybody has tik-llakat. Bunch of kids in the street have them. Youth have them. Roma people have them. A mobile operator salesman has them. A waiter in the café has them. A taxi driver leaning his car waiting for customers has them. A stray dog has them. And they make noise. They make me crazy. All the time, also right this moment, home, in my bedroom, I'm forced to listen that tapping noise as my neighbor's child has one. Though I'm not alone hating them. Also other neighbor's dog hates them. He barks. I just curse in my mind where all the silence in the world has gone.