LDN

They can and they will

Cardboard boxes and medical white walls. This was my home now and I was surprisingly happy with it. Overwhelmed by the possibilities.

My mum was in her element, sorting through boxes and documents trying to establish some form of organisation. Which was incredibly ironic as she was anything but. She couldn't locate our building this morning despite coming to see it a million times, we almost didn't move at all as she had forgotten to actually send the down payment, she was clumsy, unorganised and forgetful but still managed to unbox and connect her radio in the time it had to taken me to join her upstairs. This ancient black box given to her by a friend at university all those years ago was her oxygen. The lack of furniture meant that every breath taken was volumised and the voice of Ella Fitzgerald escaped the radio and ricocheted off of the walls.

I closed my eyes and pictured myself back in our cottage. On a sunday I would sit in the garden with my mum; I would finish my homework while she watered the flowers or we would sit and talk as we sipped on ice tea. Those quiet times we spent together were delicate memories, delicate because of how perfect they were. Perfection equates to vulnerability in my mind, so easily ruined. It was hard to imagine this place bringing that same degree of comfort but we had already started making new memories. We spent the evening stuffing our faces with deep pan stuffed crust pizza while beginning to unpack and make this house a home.

There were exactly three steps that led up to my new bedroom, its strange angles resembling that of an attic. A bed with white sheets and a rose gold frame sat in the middle of the room and nothing else, the near empty room was a canvas ready to be painted by my thoughts and personality and inspirations. Exhilarating. A set of glass doors stole my attention, I grasped the handle and after giving it a twist I was let out onto a balcony. I was mesmerised by the beauty of it. The deep and dark blue sky was accompanied with lights, little specks of character escaping from the thousands of high rise buildings. I looked down and saw that at a court yard connected a circle of flats including mine. With the wind rushing past me , the night sky behind me, the bright lights in front of me and the moving dark figures so far below I felt like a queen. And this was my kingdom.

....

I was woken up to a strong demand of eggs and bacon and had to head to the shops, I loved my mother dearly but I hate when she disrupts my sleep. This small request seemed like an impossibility and I was more than frustrated. She wanted me to somehow remember the location of a mini market that I had seen within the split second that her car had passed it. As I said impossible. But I decided not to protest and she was clearly exhausted from unloading boxes practically all night. I knew that I would ultimately have to take to the streets of London alone, it would just be sooner that I thought. I slipped into a pair of jeans, put on my vans and a black and white t-shirt and scraped my hair up to avoid being suffocated by the early July heat. I left the building and tried to form a mental map of what I had seen of the area so far. I knew there was a post office around the corner and I was sure I had seen a pub at the end of the road but couldn't remember where the shop was. I shielded my eyes from the sun and groaned.

" Are you alright "

I looked up and saw the girl from yesterday with the red heels and the hair like firewood sitting at the top of the steps . She seemed slightly less intimidating outside of her group. Her hair was pulled up into a top knot and she wore black from head to toe a complete contrast from yesterday. A cami and tracksuit bottoms stuck to her body emphasising her modest curves, paired with yet another pair of flashy nike trainer, which I noticed were worn like badges of honour around here. She blew smoke in the air, her bloodshot eyes focused on me; she was still stunning maybe even more so than yesterday. Bare faced and reduced personifying the freshness of the morning while mananging to make me feel regrettably insignifcant.