Home

It is a twenty minute journey from one world to another; from the city centre to the suburbs and from the present to the past.

Orange lamplight and the smell of flowers are my greeting as I get off the bus. Curtains are drawn in most of the windows, cars parked in the driveways to rest before the morning rush. The silence is stunning. Only far off in the distance, I hear the clink of a bottleneck shattered on a curb – another failed attempt at opening a drink, another small mishap to replace entertainment for the night.

I walk on. I am a stranger in these streets of my childhood. Only at the corner of my vision, I still see the world as it was back then; a sunny day before the children are send to bed. I see myself riding my bike and making treasures of the most ordinary things. Once, an old tire had turned into a boat for me. It sat on a sandy patch at the edge of the forest, far away from any water, but still it was an adventure only waiting to be found.

But all that happened before the restlessness begun. Before breaking bottles and kicking the lights out of the orange lamps.

As I unlock the front door that is still unchanged after all those years, a smell of dusty carpets and more flowers rolls out of the dark hall. I wait for the restlessness to urge me to flee this place, but it doesn’t come. I pull the door shut behind me and don’t feel appalled for the first time since back then. Everything here is part of my past, but also of my present and my future.

“I’m home,” I call into the silence.

Perhaps I have returned at last.