False Stars

It was the end of my first month in Houston; I was walking home in the narrow pathways with some trees and bushes on the sides. The soil was covered with the tiny pieces of the broken glass, these small fragments shined and sparkled in the lights of the street lamps, reminding me of the starry sky over my hometown.  It is amusing, Houston is known worldwide as one of the largest space centers, but you cannot see any stars if you look up in the sky. So I have to look down onto the ground to find something recalling me of the stars, reminding me of home…

    I am homesick. In the warm lonely evenings nostalgia catches me in its steel cold palms, bringing up the memories, inviting the sadness into my mind. I was walking home and thinking about the comfortable and carefree life that I have left in order to come here. I remembered my family, especially my grandma - the way she smelled with the tasty food, the way she hugged me every time I came home from school or work. I thought about her, imagined her beside me and it seemed to me for a moment that the air filled with the scent of her apple pie that she was always baking for my birthday.  But that was just a mirage. I had nobody here.

     I walked some place that I called home now. But it didn’t feel like home there, the empty and dirty apartment filled with noises and people who didn’t even live there, though there were only four of us - the actual leaseholders. Likewise, there were conflicts, a lot of them. “Who washes the dishes? Who took somebody else’s food? Who didn’t pay the bill?” – these are the examples of reasons for fights. Nothing much, but still so uncomfortable and annoying. I knew that we cannot live like this. Everybody did.

    I walked home as slow as I could; I have chosen the longest way to get there. I needed time, space and some silent peace. There was a difficult decision to be made. It had to be over - all the problems, all the irritation – everything. I opened the door, and for the first evening there were no strangers at home. I stood silently in front of the doorway for a moment or two.  I stepped inside and walked towards the round black table where the others gathered. Their faces turned to me, they were pale and tired; they greeted me by nodding or saying lazy “hi’s”. 

     It had to be over. There were four simple words. Everyone knew them, but nobody wanted to say it aloud.

     “We have to move separately”.

     I said it. Aloud.

   “We. Have. To move”.

    “Separately”.