The year of Iast times

And then the day came when the key was turned one last time, and the door was locked one last time, and from that moment on, my house - which was never ‘my house’, but only ‘mine for a given value of ‘mine’ - wasn’t my house anymore. There’s a moment of perfect stillness just before the door’s locked, and I take a deep breath : it reverberates through the entire building, a dirge building upon itself, reaching ever higher, the sound of my sigh. I find myself apologising to my grandmother. I want to cry, but can’t, I can’t, I can’t I can’t I can’t. Though as the key turns the house where I grew up ceases to be, though as the key turns, the room where me and the love of my life fucked each other’s brain out is no more, though as the key turns, that very room, the room where I asked her to marry me and she said yes is burnt to a cinder, in every level but the most real and palpable one, though as the key turns, the house where I saw my beloved grandmother turn from a human being to a living corpse, collapses in on itself and becomes something else - someone else’s home - I can’t cry.

My heart heaves a big heavy sigh. Inside I am weeping. Outside, the door locks for the last time. It’s all memories now, and a lifetime is reduced to a number of badly organised storage boxes. Already it feels like a lifetime ago since I closed that door for the final time. One day, perhaps, years and years hence, I’ll walk down that street again - and no soul there will ever know just how lonesome I feel - and I’ll look up and know peace again. But not today. Not today. Not now. Now I sleep, and clutch close to my heart a handful of memories. Memories of me. Memories of you. Memories of us. Memories of things that no longer exist.