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| Choices, choices, choices |
Ollie
Other than its color, the walls of this room
have not changed a bit. As a nineteen year old I was certain, the most I had
ever been, that I would soon return. I knew that within less than five years, I
would once again find myself effortlessly falling asleep underneath
ten-year-old glow-in-the-dark stars attached to the ceiling. I saw myself
thinking again and again why the manufacturers made red and blue stars, noting
to Google it the next morning, and then waking up to a clear head, completely
forgetting that note. Yet, now, twenty-five years later I remember. I continue
to have that image imprinted in the creases of my brain. Months before I turned
nineteen I completed a summer course in neuroscience, and now I can’t, for the
life of me, distinguish the exact location where memory is stored, or even if
such a place exists. Perhaps, that is just one sign of ageing, huh? And now, my
brain expects me to be able to spot out the cracks on the wall, or where they
used to exist twenty-five years ago.
I take a deep breath, absorbing the smell of
the paint. It’s new, no, the room has not been lived in since it was painted.
The walls smell of paint instead of human odor. Not the bad type, just the
simple scent of skin and bodily fluids that constructs a man into a memory and
transform him into a myth, far from reality. I shiver at the thought of
distance between the walls and my existence. The foreign plaster looking at me
and sizing me up and down and figuring out if I am really that girl from two
decades ago. Quickly I grab the handle and I am instantaneously relieved,
although I have yet to exit. The handle is still there, tightly clasped in the
palm of my hand. My muscles remember where the handle stays still, attached to
the wooden plank. With perfection it grabs and turns, with just the appropriate
amount of force. Maybe nothing has changed.
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| Do you get it? |
I am back at nineteen and a half, yet I am
still standing in this room, sensing the lack of familiarity and the distance
that has taken its place. That is what I hate about living on two sides of the
world, simultaneously. Yes, simultaneously, I said. I have two rooms, located
on polar ends, as well as two beds covered with soothing colored sheets. Two
toothbrushes await, snuggly placed on its special holder. Half of my wardrobe
is shuttled back and forth, confused by the quick change in weather and the
stark humidity. Sheer miracle has prevented me from leaving anything behind,
where it is not needed. It is also the one thing that has kept me from damaging
any items along the way. Thank god I live in the time of commercial airlines,
without it life would be one giant pause button with added channels: home, the
ship and America. How long does it take from home to America by boat? I bet it
would take about six months, or is that too much of a reach? Who am I kidding
if it were still the era of great sails I doubt a girl with two slanted eyes
would even dare travel to the opposite side of the globe just to learn theories
and be hovered down by existential dilemmas, which is what you would get from a
the type of education I simultaneously made love and fought with.
Now I miss those days. How ironic.
I hear footsteps, seeping through underneath
the door. If someone had told me that I would be married and have three children,
I would laugh and point a finger at them accusingly. But someone did, although
I did not literally laugh and point, I still did it in my mind. Sometimes I
feel that fateful night stopped me dead on my tracks, just like it did to Nanami.
“You should carry your phone with you, mom”, my
oldest pushes the door that continues to be connected with me at the
fingertips.
“Be careful”, I say without thinking it
through, only to realize how angry I sound.
“I’m sorry…” he says much like my closest
cousin used to do. How I despised him for that, his apologies, him being so
frightened. And yet, in college, I was probably despised for the exact same
reason, for apologizing too rapidly.
“I’m sorry”, I make the same mistake for the
hundredth time.
“Aren’t you going to answer the phone?” he
looks at me, perhaps implying that I forgot to take my meds.
“Of course”, I take the black brick out of his
hand and answer, wishing that it would be a short, unnecessary phone call,
“Hello!”
Before the caller could reply, he left and
closed the door behind him. Times like these I cursed that woman for seeing
three children in my future. Still, even twenty-five years later, having had
three children, I felt the vivid instinct to stop at one.
*Author owns all rights to the photos above
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