Nostalgia

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I just remembered something that happened a long time ago.”

“Yeah? Anything good?”

“...no... not really.”

That’s right. Before all this became real, before we lived in a house, mother and I used to live in one of those low-pay flats. Mother would work overtime to make ends meet and we would always reach home in the early mornings only to leave home after a few measly hours of sleep. I used to love sleeping in the car. I would always have a headache from waking up after too few hours of sleep and would feel nauseous until I caught an hour more of sleep in the car. The air conditioning would have a sort of musty, damp smell to it when it first starts up. I liked it.

There were no guards in the area and it was scary at night. The parking lot was an open one too. I remember once there was a stray dog that kept following us. I was scared and clung onto mother’s skirt until she shooed it away. Looking back, it probably wasn’t all that terrifying a dog. It probably just wanted a place to call home.

The elevators were small and old. There was once mother had gotten a whole lot of fruits. There were two big bags full. They were thorny and I felt bad not helping. When I asked if she needed help, she just smiled and thanked me for the thought but declined. Thinking back, it wasn’t so surprising. I must have sounded silly considering the bags were as big as me.

There were times when we came home at night to find that the fuse had been stolen. There wouldn’t be any electricity and we would spend the night uncomfortable. The water was never warm so that didn’t matter, but the lights wouldn’t switch on and neither would the fan. I can’t really recall, but I think we opened the bedroom window those nights.

We didn’t have any furniture in the living room. It was a small, white place with one television set that had to be turned on manually by pressing the buttons on it. The floor was cheap marble. During the weekends, I would wake up early and sneak out of the room I shared with mother and sit on the floor to watch morning cartoons. There wasn’t even a table, now that I remember it. The only table there was came with the house in the kitchen. It was a little island table big enough for two people to sit at.

The old air conditioning motor out on the balcony seemed to always attract pigeons. They would build their nests on top of it and would leave a terrible mess on the balcony. Mother always kept it clean and would try to sweep away the nests but they kept coming back. I don’t remember if there were any eggs in them.

I remember the bed being a simple queen mattress placed on the floor against the wall. After watching a movie about crocodiles that would eat people, I was scared for weeks. I wouldn’t go anywhere without mother and even when she went to the toilet, I would wait outside the door for her anxiously. Every night, I would imagine the crocodile coming for us and wouldn’t fall asleep until exhaustion took over. It always worried me that the bed was too close to the ground. It never occurred to me to suggest sleeping in the room next door where there was another bed in a proper bed frame. That room was always just a taboo place. It was always cold. It had belonged to father.

It was a difficult life. Unknown neighbours who would steal our fuse, dingy elevators, scary parking lots, a bare house; there’s no doubt that we were pitiful. But somehow, when I think back on what it was like... I don’t feel all that scared. I suppose, because I didn’t know anything better then and because I was a child, my ignorance was my bliss—my bliss in poverty.