She’d spent the whole day out of the house, because she was unable to handle watching strange men packing her entire life into cardboard boxes and load them onto giant trucks. Her friends took her mind off these things, took her out, cheered her up…It was about 5 in the evening before she returned, and gingerly stepped into the house, scared that she would burst into tears.
The door was open, and the movers walked in and out of the house as if it was a public haven. Papers lay around. First, she walked to the hall…a few pieces of furniture lay scattered around. Several men were packing articles into the boxes.
She walked through the corridor, and towards her parents room. More boxes….She walked to the guest room then, and choked on seeing it full of cardboard boxes…no furniture, no curtains, nothing. There was only a mirror in the far corner of the room, where she caught a glimpse of her lonely reflection.
Last of all, she walked to her room. She burst into tears at the first sight of the room. All her belongings lay in the dull brown boxes that lay piled one on top of each other all over the room. The colorful curtains had come down. There was no mattress on the bed, which was now only a hard brown wooden plank. The room had been stripped naked. Her two friends Paroma and Naqiya walked into the room then, and found her weeping silently. Her mother followed and hugged her. She took about 5 minutes to control herself, and sat on the “bed’ with her friends, talking about how she couldn’t handle seeing the house like this.
Soon all her other friends reached the house…Karu, Tanvi, Scott, Sam, Adi, Akhil, Anosh, Nekzaad, Stefan, Urvi. They took one look at her face and knew she’d been crying. She could see that they were equally upset to see the house like this.
She watched as Karishma walked around the house and then walked back sobbing. That’s all it took. It was like a chain reaction…Karu hugged her, and she began to cry too. Urvi began to cry and ran into the bathroom and locked herself inside. Tanvi went inside to comfort her, but walked out with tears streaming down her face as well. Paroma and Naqiya broke down. Akhil wiped a few tears from his eyes. Scott and Sam looked sadly around at the house, while Anosh, Stefan and Nekzaad looked around awkwardly, not knowing how to react. Adi was the last to break down.
It was about an hour before everyone calmed down. They decided to go out again, to Marine Drive, and spend the rest of the evening there. They found Ju on the way. Everyone went to sit at the far end of Marine Drive, at “the rocks”, as they called them. They spent the rest of the evening there, talking and laughing. She was glad, because it took her mind off the fact that she was moving the next day. She was enjoying herself. She didn’t want to go back to the empty house.
The whole bunch of them left from Marine Drive, and Scott, Ju and Anosh took her to the sugarcane juice centre to get a drink. Then they walked her home. They stood under the building, talking for a while. Then her friends left, and for the first time since she’d left the house that morning, she felt really lonely.
She patted Buddy, the building dog and walked into the elevator. She pressed “6” out of habit. She walked out, pulled out her house key and opened the door for the last time. Her parents were sitting in the hall. She handed her mother the key, knowing she wouldn’t need to open the door again after this.
Then she went and sat in her room. Her empty room. She looked at the ceiling and suddenly noticed the glow-in-the-dark stars she’d stuck there when she was 9 years old. She hadn’t taken them off since. Her mother walked into the room, saw her staring at the ceiling and said, “I thought you might want to take those off…” She looked at her mother sadly, “I don’t think I can, ma..” Her mother nodded understandingly, and sat beside her for a few minutes in silence. Then she left the room again.
She sat alone staring at the stars, not ready to take them off. Taking the stars down signified defeat, in her eyes. Taking the stars down was equivalent to taking down the balloons and streamers after a party. She stood up and stretched her hand out to pull the stars down, and jerked it back. She’d do this later, she couldn’t now.
That night, she fell asleep on the makeshift bed in her parents room, dreading the next day. She slipped into a sad, dreamless sleep.
The next day, before she left, she took one last look around the house. As she walked into her room, she glanced at the ceiling. She saw the stars stuck there. She took a deep breath, climbed onto the bed and stretched her hand out. She pulled the stars down one by one, and with each star she pulled down, she severed ties with her house of many years.
The last star stayed clung to the ceiling. She sighed heavily and tore it down. She climbed off the bed and stared at the empty ceiling. “Party’s over…” she mumbled, and walked out of the house and climbed into the car and drove to her new home. The party was, indeed, over.
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Submission Name: Moving House
