An Phú Compound
I remember a big black leather couch, and tons of statues in our yard. My brother and I would swim in the pool to wash off the day’s heat, splashing and giggling in the blue tiles. One time we tried to fill up a bucket with holes. When I think back to that moment, I recall myself knowing it would never work, only going along for the fun of it, but they do say everything is obvious in retrospect.
I had a dream that gravity was a lot less binding. I jumped down the stairs four at a time, landing softly on the tip of my feet. And then I dreamed I woke up but I could still walk like I was on the moon.
My first home was a place for dreams within dreams; for a careless childhood sweetened by the melody of my mother’s lullabies. I long for the time I used to think her voice was the most beautiful sound in the world. I wish I remembered more from this place.
Waterfall Bay
We didn’t stay there long. The house was too big for me to remember any one room, but I know I loved the pool. I’d grasp at the water that poured into it like a fountain, imagining myself climbing up the wall with the streaming water as my rope.
I fell down the spiraled marble stairs and got a scar on my knee that wouldn’t fade for the next thirteen years. My mother told me if I looked away from the blood it would stop hurting. She covered the wound in bandages and gave it a kiss, and I knew there was magic in how the pain suddenly went away.
Via Barberia
I never remember moving in. It’s like we boarded off the plane and into the apartment to find all the beds made and the fridge fully stocked. We had this painting there that terrified me. I always felt like it’s eyes followed me whenever I walked up the stairs, and if I stayed still for too long it would come to life and get me. It’s why I always ran in that part of the apartment, and probably why the people who lived underneath us complained about heavy footsteps.
My brother and I shared a bunk bed. I chose the bottom one because I was scared I’d fall off in my sleep if I chose the top. When we bought a hamster, we lost him the first time we tried to pick him up. My brother opened the cage wrong and the little creature hid in different corners of the room until my dad had found him for us and put him back.
Via Barberia (part 2)
We moved two floors down. It was a much smaller apartment, but that didn’t matter at my age. Our bunk beds turned into two beds side by side and one meter apart. Sometimes my brother and I would feed the fat cat that meowed by the window in our bathroom.
Years passed and one day we decided we were too old to share a room. We did our best to divide the one we had by building a giant wardrobe in the middle of it. I took the side with the bathroom, although the cat no longer visited us.
Đảo Kim Cương
Out of all my homes, this was the one that felt the least like one when we first moved. The interior was so polished I could have been living in a hotel, and none of our furniture that had followed us around the world was there. And then I learned how to tune out the horns of boats passing by as I slept, and found out I loved to sleep in cold temperatures with a thick blanket.
Chesterman House
My first (and last) time in student halls. My first (and so far last) time living with complete strangers. The building was right on the A20, one of the major roads in south-east England, and I realized the boat horns from my last home were only preparing me for the ambulance sirens in this one. The kitchen was never clean, and my flatmates used my glasses as ash trays when theirs broke. I couldn’t move out of there fast enough.
Rotherhithe
My current home, which I share with my incredible friends. Our kitchen is clean, and my glasses only disappear when I accidentally drop them on the floor. I really like this seventh home, and I hope my eighth is even better.
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