Well, I supposed an introduction is in order, yeah?
My name is Tomas Águas, and I’m a new contributing writer to the Meridian Recto blog, offering perspectives that diverge from Rick’s. Though Rick and I share many similarities, our differences create a dialectic of sorts. Sometimes I like to think of myself as the Recto to his Verso, but together, we form one folio; it works.
Similarly to Rick moving to Dallas, I recently moved back into my childhood home in a small subdivision of the metroplex—a subdivision with a ghost in every home and monsters lurking in every corner. I haven’t seen this town in well over 10 years when I left for university, yet the familiar feelings of isolation and paralysis loom like a dense fog. In my youth, I never knew why I felt such a repugnance towards this town, but after living in a large urban center for a decade, I took resources for granted, like public transportation, stores within walking distance, or even sidewalks. This town does not have any sidewalks, only ghosts. For a couple of weeks, I did not have access to a vehicle since mine was broken down and all of my family members need their own cars for their commute to work, and of course, no one works close enough to each other to carpool. So I was stuck.
I was stuck inside this house, with the same towering walls looming over my head like it did when I was a child—ominous and distant. I was never sure if these walls kept out the elements or trapped me inside, with the ghosts in the ceiling chattering and laughing. The attempts to escape proved to be futile, the only third space to exist without the tacit requirement of purchasing commodities is one lone park a mile away.
It generally takes 40 minutes to walk, an hour if the lawns on the side of the roads are wet. The roads don’t have a shoulder either; instead, for a significant portion of the walk, the lawns are not even to the road. Instead, they form a divot about 3 feet wide and deep to take on excess rainfall and runoff which make them particularly treacherous to slip and land on broken bottles or syringes hidden in the overgrowth. There is, however, one shortcut available that requires the pedestrian to cut through another open lawn, but the precarious nature of the inhabitants compels them to frequent phone calls to the police should they see an intruder passing through, and of course, the police have nothing else to do and are itching for any opportunity to use their shiny toy guns. Amongst the child denizens, it’s customary to only use the shortcut as dusk when it’s easy to avoid detection, but I notice that I was of the last generation to actually walk to the park, the children now get off the school bus and zombie walk directly to their homes, eyes never lifting from their black mirror.
Even during these winter months where the sun won’t rise until after the children are in school, they stand in the dark near a rusting stop sign for the school bus. If they’re lucky, they won’t be too cold to nap for 15 minutes before having the oppressive white school walls to stare at for 8 hours. I remember being in that same exact spot when I was their age, but I can’t recall any time I stood in temperatures like these. It’s like even the warmer months don’t want to come back here. Like the stars.
In my childhood, the sky overflowed with stars. I’d gaze up, envisioning constellations like the big dipper sharing from the milky way. Now, the stars have vanished, replaced by clouds which blot out the moonlight. Instead, parasites scour the wasteland-sky carrying kilos of Amazon packages and Funko Pops. During especially dark nights of the soul, I will hallucinate two planes as the eyes of a great dragon, patiently waiting.
I come back 10 years later and find ghosts. Ghosts, ghosts, ghosts, nothing in this land but death and ghosts. How much time do I have before I realize that I’ve been consumed by these spectres, becoming a ghost of who I thought I was.
Being in a heartless home is often too much for a tender heart like mine.
