Home Again

Walking down my street on a darkly cold evening. I try hard to remember what I am walking toward. My Home. I've been away so long; I can only just remember the flickering glow in the fireplace, my private summer. I can feel the walls calling me, urging me to come home, much stronger than before. I look upon the door; a naked oak peers though scraps of paint but I still feel so welcomed. A lion head knocker greets me with a roar as I rap upon the wood, awaiting an answer I know I'll never hear.

I remember the furry carpet as I walk with an ebony ribbon round my eyes, searching frantically for the light switch. Dusty floorboards come into sight as light floods the room. I see my stairs. I slid right down them five years previous, or more. I am home now. I feel safe for the first time since I've been gone. A few things have changed as I hear the past resident echoes re-bound off the walls like minions chittering.  To my room I shuffle, though the wrapping paper of the past, Christmases much long ago. The house was warm and amber. My cheeks flood with joy and warmth. Cinnamon still lives here, in these walls, hugging me. Greeting me. This will always be my home… Sat on the windowsill on looking a sight I've seen a thousand times before, feels new. Feels different. Emerald green leaves wave in the wind, their happy I'm home too. That tree is my tree. I planted it and so it is mine.

My mother burst though the door and asks me to come down for dinner. When I arrive it seems she favours the mice's choice over mine. Cracker in hand, I pace around the garden as the neighbours talk in hushed gossip over the boundary. Ironic really. I sit where my swing used to be on the icy grass and imagine sewing up there mouths. Lush green grass explodes in a violent rage around me and floods the garden. I'm tired of gardening. My arms ache. I swig from my lemonade as my sister rocks gently in the corner... playing with her toys, crying down her little face. I play with a gargantuan caterpillar instead. It cry’s sticky green tears all over me and I throw it with disgust.

My cracker breaks on the wall of my home.

The garage smells the same and I see it reflects me too, a sort of old musty smell from lack of care. It’s always been like this, that why I've always been welcome. One summer my friend and I painted it red. Blood red. My friend didn't like it. No one talked to him after that. If fact, they never saw him at all. I planted the honey suckles out side my front door. This was my home. Its still is my home as I still belong. My home forgives everything I have ever done and comforts me to sleep; once again, on the doormat, under the lion head knocker in front of the door, boarded up and impenetrable. And so I sleep. He purrs...

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