Memories

Excellence Award in the 'Horizon of Dreams 2018' competition

Some places only exist in a memory.
Evening, sun setting, the sky stained with orange as darkness begins to consume the eastern horizon. One by one, stars come out.
A few streets away, cars whizz by, the bustle and glitter of city life muted by distance. The foreign yet familiar music of the nightly call to prayer emanates from the mosque down the street. The air is warm, humid, not oppressively so; the heat fades from the day. There is a faint scent of dust and hot asphalt, basil and sunburned grass.
A hint of a breeze touches my hair. My toes dig into the flaking metal of the old door I perch on, looking out at the empty road beyond the walled garden. Inside the white-painted walls, real and synthetic grass surround a blue-tiled pool; a stunted tree with red flowers leans against the wall and bougainvillea climbs the smooth white facades of the identical houses, screen doors shuttered against the heat.
Up here is my hideout, lookout, the highest point I can climb to. I scramble up here, clinging like a lizard, reaching and hooking my fingers on the crossbars on the back of the old door. Here I dream and think and sing and cry, perching here pressed close as I can get to the sky, too high and precarious for a smaller child, meaningless to an adult.
A tiny corner of solitude in a shared world.
The sun sets.
It will always be evening, there.

Years pass. Children grow. Times change.
A different garden under a different sunset in a different sky. Rain, greenery, the scent of eucalypts, air that is always somehow colder, cleaner, more alive. Endless space, endless sky.
The search for solitude gives way to loneliness.
Before I step into the car the heat envelopes me like a grasping slap, the humidity coating my glasses with fog, air still and heavy, oppressively bright. It smells of dust with a hint of city fumes. Buildings blur past as we navigate the maze of roads through tinted windows, breathing recycled air. A city of memories caught like a faded photograph beneath the weight of progress. Echoes of familiarity in a wall, or a gate, or a street.
This was not the city of my memory.
Bright sunlight made the white-painted wall shimmer with glare. The faded white paint on the old door was spotted with stickers. It looked – small. Diminished. No closer than I was to the dust-coloured sky. I couldn’t see the garden.
Quick as a fading dream, it was left behind.
No, this was not the city of my memory. This was not my home.
It will always be evening, there.

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