Ex Home

 

I unlock the huge padlocks to step into our old one-storied house. From tomorrow it will have a new owner. That’s a relief.

For more than five years my sister Mila and I have been trying in vain to sell it off. The house has 3 bedrooms, a study, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Yeah, that does sound pretty good but a closer look reveals how poorly planned the property was. The rooms were boiling hot during the summers and stony cold during the brief spells of winter. The backyard was infested with thorny shrubs that never flowered. Power supply was unreliable and no amount of sanitization could keep the pests away.

Mila and I now live in comfortable apartments. Father has passed away and mother lives with Mila. This house had become an annoying baggage to us. I managed to sell it off after a long agonizing wait. So here I am, on my final visit to our old home. Most of the furniture have long been shifted. It is only a nondescript cupboard which I have to remove before the new owner moves in.

I have made an arrangement with a scrap dealer to get the junk picked up. A look at my smartphone tells me that I have about 30 minutes of time before the men come over with the collection truck. I walk up to the cupboard and jerk open the chipped door to look at the piles of useless material hoarded by my father.

Rows of old exercise copies are stacked inside. Those remind me of our lacklustre childhood and annoyed, I shut the door. Perhaps I have banged the door too hard for the door rebounds and a sketching book falls out. A scrawny, cross-eyed girl dressed in impossible colours is now staring back at me from the open book. It is little Mila’s work from preschool.  I tear out the page and fold it neatly before pocketing it.

As I place the sketching book back my eyes fall on another copy. It is mine…it used to be mine. I pull it out and read through casually. Looks like I often had tried my hand at poetry. I stop at one poem, titled “My Dream Home”. It describes a simple house with four rooms and a small backyard. Right at the bottom of the page my father had signed and remarked, “Excellent!” I check the date. Three decades have passed! The poem was from a time when we used to stay at a tiny rented place. Was I a simpler person? With simpler hopes and wishes? I start to read the piece again but the loud doorbell interrupts me.

I stuff the copy in my purse and run to answer the door.

The men are here. They need brief instructions. And then they begin to stow away the lone cupboard. I lock the main door and start to walk away. And then…I don’t why…I burst into tears.