Tuesday, July 15, 2008

with blue and red blotches of paint

It was my house but it no longer was my house. I was sitting at the azotea terrace together with them. It seemed to me like Jaqui owned the house but someone else, an old man, seemed to be in charge. We were sitting, looking at the traffic. There appeared this little wizened old man, who sat at the furthest end, in the shadow. “That’s X”, the old man who seemed to be in charge of the house said, “you may have seen him around. You don’t know this but he lives in this house, in little nooks and crannies, his room is just a little space between walls. You wouldn’t believe it”. I knew it was true. The man gruffed and stirred in his seat, apparently uncomfortable.

I stood up and looked into the distance, at the mountain, barely visible in the dark. “I wish I could buy back this house. There’s too much of me seeped into the walls of this place. Of my history, of that of my folk. Then again, selling it was something that needed to be done at the time and that’s pretty much that”. I stared at the brim of the short wall, covered in small blotches of paint in blue and red. Looked deliberate and like it would have taken a lot of work to do. I didn’t like it much, though. I was tired and wanted to be back in my room but I didn’t even know which one was my room -or, indeed, and I only thought of it then, whether I had a room at all in the house. In the distance, a big round yellow moon was beginning to appear from behind the mountains. This was indeed my house, had always been. But now it was no longer my house and I couldn’t make it so. Maybe I was dreaming and I just needed to wake up. At this point I knew this was what was happening but it only made me sadder, because I was seeing my house as it had been so many years ago (apart from the paint work and the strange occupants) and it no longer was that and I no longer had anything to do with it and I wasn’t there but thousands of miles away, living a different life...

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