Z.

C.

I was awoken by the pang in my stomach. It ached with acknowledgement of hunger. I slowly pulled myself up from the ground and examined my surroundings. Dirt, grass, a stream and what seemed like an abandoned house. I tried to imagine what an 8-year old me would look like, playing on the lawn and smiling in the Summers breeze. 

It seemed futile because I didn't know what I looked like at 8 years old anyways. Its not that I couldn't remember. I didn't want to remember. It was useless. The house was a French-style mansion with a vast front porch and a familiar door bell. I searched my mind to look for the repertoire of the many door bells that I had seen in my life but I failed to find a correspondence. I stared at the house and felt a brush against my skin. It was like a touch of relativity and an urgency to explore the house and what it held inside.

The door creaked open as I turned the doorknob anti-clockwise. I stood in the hallway for a moment to register what I was seeing. The inside of the house was in a better condition than the outside. There were beautiful china and silverware everywhere. Wooden tables of ebony and mahogany stood in the hallway, holding these grotesques, porcelain vases with dead daffodils, roses and chrysanthemums. I did not even find it necessary to knock or to shout for a human response to indicate their presence because the lack of electricity and water was evidence enough that nobody resided there. I mean, who the hell lives like this? Without dusting their furniture, let alone, cleaning their home? 

I had seen enough of the space downstairs and took the stairway to the top. It was a magnificent, spiral staircase with a banister on the side that was made out of glass. I was hoping it was plastic so I could slide back down. Silly right? The first room I entered was almost empty and it only had an antique chandelier in the ceiling and some rusted door handles on the wooden floor. The f**k? The next room was fully furnished. A Queen-sized bed, a headboard, two nightstands on either side of the bed with ancient Chinese lamps and even a walk-in closet. Who the hell were these people and why would they abandon this house? For God sakes, it had a f*****g walk-in closet. Who walks out of that? 

2 hours later, I had visited the whole house and was entirely convinced that it was abandoned. No clothes, no water, no electricity, and dust everywhere, the grass wasn't lawn-mowed, there were no curtains or bedding in the bedrooms and also, there were no kitchen appliances, family photographs for identification or personal belongings. I had made a decision to stay in the house. It had a homey feeling to it. Something that made me feel safer and more welcomed. 

I had to get back to the Quakers house first to fetch my belongings and the little money that I had to buy some candles for starters. I had a sense of fulfilment  and for the first time in my life, I felt excited about something. It was odd because I didn't think of the negative things that could hinder my stay in that house but I knew that I just liked the feeling of independence that it brought. 

I took a train to Utrecht and had to go through the most just so that I wouldn't have to pay for it. Yeah, you can only imagine. Also, I had more money. I got to the Quakers house and washed down my body, almost scrubbing my skin off. I packed my things, took down my curtains and bedding and stripped the whole room naked. One thing I had remembered which I had actually forgotten was my cellphone. Where the f**k was it? I was horrified at the thought of maybe forgetting it at Álvaro's place that day. Okay b***h, calm down and just think. It must have been that past weekend you spent high as a motherfucker. God, no. Why me? 

I felt my face turn warm and the tears begin to blur my vision but it all quickly dissipated as soon as I thought about the house and the fact that there was no electricity. Where would you have charged your phone anyways, Zara? Good riddance. Maybe this was a chance to start over. To lose every malevolent contact and try this life thing on a different route. I did not care about where my next meal was going to come from or how I was going to survive as my cellphone practically fed me. And what if the owners of that house come back and you find yourself homeless again? I didn't care. 

I only cared about happiness and contentment and these emotions were deeper than any other that I had ever felt...