Home Buddies

Every night, before I head up to a garbage dumpster disguised as a room, I’d sit on a rusty stair case right outside our gate and stare at the sky. Sometimes the sky would stare back at me and give me that mischievous wink of his, and I’d smile. Then there are times the moon would show off and gather her minions around and together they’d sparkle like diamonds and I’d sit there and marvel at their beauty.

And right then and there, I’d think about my life and how the universe above me seems to examine it under a microscope and I’d wonder what would they be saying about it right now?

From time to time I’d get distracted from my trance as dormmates would pass by and say hi and probably wonder what I was doing there, sitting with my happy stick and staring at the sky. But as time passed they probably got used to it as they would just walk right through without even giving me a second look.

Sometimes (usually when my neck already hurts from looking up), I’d check out the scribbles and doodles on the wall care of our friendly neighborhood vandals, and right before my eyes the words would form sentences that would actually talk to me as if they were mocking me and the rusty staircase that I was sitting on.

A lamp post would shine its yellow light on us while the basketball ring right beside it sleeps after a day of harassment from the little kids.

And in those moments, I would lose myself and be one with the staircase. IT and ME in one solitary moment of sheer metal and human bonding. And for a moment there, I am at peace. The day’s madness all fades away and becomes a distant memory.

I’d stare at the sky one last time and there would be times when I am actually tempted to go down on one knee and ask him to marry me. But of course I’d restrain myself lest the neighbors think that a mad woman is walking around freely in the area.

 
And so after my last glimpse at a lover that can only have me as his mistress, I’d get up, cross to the other side, and immediately the magic is lost. I am then welcomed by the noise of the television and conversations of my dormmates, and I’d go up a different staircase, open the door of Room 7, switch on the light, put down my bag, lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling pretending that it was made of glass and that I could see the sky from inside my room.

I sleep, wake up, take a bath, go down, go out, pass by the rusty staircase now looking plain and ugly under the sun’s harsh glare and give it a silent assurance that tonight, my bum will be atop it again. ;)