Window Screens

Coming home from school. To an empty house. Sometimes we’d forget the key. We were still kids. Five and six. Our neighbouring friends would help us break through the window screens. The ones to keep all the bugs in Australia at bay. You’d get mad thinking how easy it was for us to break in. We were five and six. We had no furniture. Ate on the floor. There were no prized possessions past our door. Nobody else was breaking through. We had nothing of value. You’d still be fuming. We’d never understand why. Maybe it was the shame. That it was so easy to break into the home you’d made. For us, you, here in the land that was meant to give us wings. A home that had locked us in. But we’d do it again. Because sometimes we’d lose the keys, for the home you slaved. Thartha1 would grab the belt. Just like his father before him. Teaching us a lesson about breaking in. About losing things. Forgetting or remembering? It was always left unsaid. We were five and six. It all seemed unfair.

They had to work and re-study. In a country that wasn’t theirs to claim, and we were their children in a country that couldn’t resound our names. We’d do it again. Forgetful of the mark your belt felt on our skin. We were five and six. Left to our own devices. Once I razored a new fringe and Aiya2 shaved his whole face. His eyebrows were missing for days. Broke the broom you bought on Aiya’s head. Shattered glass leaving a trail of the fights you weren’t there to put to rest. I was nine. He was ten. We were left home alone again. There was no other choice to. But a choice was made. I don’t know how you did it. Coming home to us. Or how we did it.

And lived through the dusk. Anything could’ve gone wrong. I’m grateful it didn’t. The plight of all immigrants. Fighting to belong. On foreign soil, far from home.
To the boy down the road…

1 Father
2 Older brother