odds n' ends
どこでもいいよ
There, I lived on the sixth floor of an old neo-Classical apartment, neatly nestled between two bookstores. The one to my immediate left upon exiting the complex offered a weekly rotation of discounted novellas in a language I could not read. Next to the entrance sat a small Euronet ATM—a tourist trap for the ones who didn’t know any better. The street ahead was noisy, a conglomerate of shouting and honks occasionally suspended by the cadence of the emergency sirens.
The elevator ride up consisted of a narrow nine square feet platform, a full length mirror on one side, and wooden doors on the other that would open at the slightest touch, abruptly halting the ascent. It was a strange experience, for I could never decide how long that climb really took. When I was staring at myself in the mirror, trying to flatten that one stubborn strand of flyaway hair, it felt like mere seconds. Yet on the late nights when not even the heaviness of the walls surrounding me could make me feel safe in a foreign city 7000 kilometers away from home, the seconds felt like hours. Upon entering through the wooden doors of the apartment, a sudden gust of wind would try to push you backwards. Perhaps this had to do with the particular arrangements of the windows—my flatmate and I always preferred to keep them open—or perhaps some ancient spirit was trying to keep strangers out. This was the urban legend my landlady told me when I first arrived, and I never asked her whether she was actually kidding or not. Maybe this explained why the sunlight cast through the windows would always be slightly tinted pink: a shy, gentle ghost. My stay there wasn’t very long, only a mere four months, give or take a few days. I wasn’t particularly attached either, and bid it a light farewell on my last night. But sometimes, whenever I see a slightly chipped gargoyle statue, a wooden elevator, a fridge with a broken freezer door, I would think back to the old place, wondering whether the spirit there was lonely. |
Authora little cynical & tired Archives
July 2019
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