Empty.

Today, as I was sitting here, I could hear wafts of the drums floating in from next door. And I thought, I will miss feeling this, seeing this. The white picket fence. The big, flourishing , yellow Alamanda tree beside the fish pond. The clusters of Ixora bushes beside the gate. The big, tall Christmas trees slowly being eaten away by parasites. The squeaky front door grills that have watched me grow up. The secret shoe bench. The old school steps up from the living room. The cracking walls of the kitchen. The rusty yellow backdoor. The alternate passageway to the washroom. The special, old, creaky, yellow connecting door. The peeling floral wallpaper that’s probably even older than I am. The wooden doors with multiple rusty, tarnished locks. The jagged hole in the mosquito netting. The beautiful tiles with pictures of geese and ducks in the bathroom. The creaky cupboard bursting with clothes that’s missing a handle and that opens by itself. The matching furniture. The teddy bear curtains and bedspread. The squeaky beds. The empty green field visible from the window. I will miss all of this and more.


I am leaving a piece of my heart behind here. No, make that many pieces. So many memories shattered to fragments, left behind in every nook and corner. The slip and fall by the front stairs, the sprained ankle in the early recesses of the morning, the countless days being awoken by the sound of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, the humid dinners, the run in with the cobra, Bob cowering under the bench during a thunderstorm, the walks back after taking the bus, the countless celebrations of birthdays, the slogging for exams and assignments on the aged wooden desk.

Will the hands of time freeze for a moment to just let me take this all in?


Change… it is the only thing that is constant indeed.