My next door neighbour is barbecuing tonight. I opened the basement door (ill-advised combination of solvents drove me out into the evening) and the smell of flame-roasted pork got me in the gut. Hands shaking, gripped the door, dishevelled, covered in sawdust, safety glasses on my head, blinking like a mole. His wife is delightful, pregnant, but then I can't avoid every reminder of my old life. Insist I join them for a drink, can't go back inside anyway. Not without a gas mask, idiot. A beer sweats in my fingers, sitting on a wall talking about how lovely the weather is. It's not, less than twenty degrees. The weather back home is thirty. Back home. This is meant to be home now, there's nothing left of home out there. I lost that.
The smell of roasting meat has me confused, torn between memories of open fires on packed earth floors and this ridiculous English garden, all abandoned children's toys, trampolines and flowers. Condensation from the bottle soaks into my jeans, my hands are still shaking. They talk about the basement, they owned it before I moved in and he would like a tour, lame joke about having gassed myself out, they laugh too loud, polite. Feeble sun on the back of my neck, hands clammy, sweating and cold.
Their daughter runs over, about four, dark curls and brown eyes. That's it. Silhouette of the wife, pregnant, turning meat over an open fire with bamboo chopsticks. No, tongs, the chopsticks are the memory. Laughter from two doors down, distorted, can almost pick out Khmer words. Set the bottle down, careful, stand, the daughter is clinging to her Mother's legs, dark eyes peering up at me. Make my excuses and burrow back into the basement, the noxious tang in the air has gone. Back against the closed door, run a cold hand down my face, shaking, glasses crack onto the floor. Sliding down the door, cold concrete floor, rough wood shavings. Sitting, lost in memories, sit there for too long; nearly impossible to unfold cramped muscles, have to drag myself up with the door handle.
Pathetic, weak. Scared off by a family barbecue. But that's the worst kind of memory, not something that happened once but a daily ritual. Cooking meat over an open fire, long chopsticks, the hiss of the grill, face flushed from the heat of the fire cutting through the blanket of humidity. At first we were hopeless, had to be tutored by a barbecue master in the art of not dropping chopsticks into the fire and not burning off the hairs of our hands. She adopts it as her favourite chore of the day, despite the unbearable heat and the fog of smoke. Overjoyed the first time we didn't sacrifice a chopstick to the fire, tin plate of meat, giant smiles. Our tutor comes over, snags a piece, chews thoughtfully, finally she decrees it "nangai, nangai" (okay, okay). Could do better, a solid C at cooking. The smell of charcoal in her hair that night makes me smile.
By the time I get off the floor it's hard to believe I'm here. This happens a lot, the blurring of the line between memory and reality. Some nights I half-wake, lost, smell of her somehow in the room, confused, where are we? Catch myself talking to her and that's when it hits me again that I'm lying alone, grey fingers of dawn easing through the window.
The smell of roasting meat has me confused, torn between memories of open fires on packed earth floors and this ridiculous English garden, all abandoned children's toys, trampolines and flowers. Condensation from the bottle soaks into my jeans, my hands are still shaking. They talk about the basement, they owned it before I moved in and he would like a tour, lame joke about having gassed myself out, they laugh too loud, polite. Feeble sun on the back of my neck, hands clammy, sweating and cold.
Their daughter runs over, about four, dark curls and brown eyes. That's it. Silhouette of the wife, pregnant, turning meat over an open fire with bamboo chopsticks. No, tongs, the chopsticks are the memory. Laughter from two doors down, distorted, can almost pick out Khmer words. Set the bottle down, careful, stand, the daughter is clinging to her Mother's legs, dark eyes peering up at me. Make my excuses and burrow back into the basement, the noxious tang in the air has gone. Back against the closed door, run a cold hand down my face, shaking, glasses crack onto the floor. Sliding down the door, cold concrete floor, rough wood shavings. Sitting, lost in memories, sit there for too long; nearly impossible to unfold cramped muscles, have to drag myself up with the door handle.
Pathetic, weak. Scared off by a family barbecue. But that's the worst kind of memory, not something that happened once but a daily ritual. Cooking meat over an open fire, long chopsticks, the hiss of the grill, face flushed from the heat of the fire cutting through the blanket of humidity. At first we were hopeless, had to be tutored by a barbecue master in the art of not dropping chopsticks into the fire and not burning off the hairs of our hands. She adopts it as her favourite chore of the day, despite the unbearable heat and the fog of smoke. Overjoyed the first time we didn't sacrifice a chopstick to the fire, tin plate of meat, giant smiles. Our tutor comes over, snags a piece, chews thoughtfully, finally she decrees it "nangai, nangai" (okay, okay). Could do better, a solid C at cooking. The smell of charcoal in her hair that night makes me smile.
By the time I get off the floor it's hard to believe I'm here. This happens a lot, the blurring of the line between memory and reality. Some nights I half-wake, lost, smell of her somehow in the room, confused, where are we? Catch myself talking to her and that's when it hits me again that I'm lying alone, grey fingers of dawn easing through the window.
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