A short story

‘Gosh, moving house is tedious, whichever country you live in. We have now bought a new house after one and a half years of being in this country. With the money used to buy the new house one could design an enormous villa back home. The new house here has good views, not as big a garden as the current one though. It has got good bus services and a railway station a few miles from there. It has got shops near by, not a mile away like here. I’ll get used to it all. I was the one who started it anyway. I begged my parents to get a new house. And its nice to get a change regularly, brings forth new challenges. Stagnation is no good, leads to dementia in my view. Anyway, I’m going to like it there.’ These were the thoughts running through Anita’s head when she was making last minute checks on the packing. There wasn’t much to move, a few pieces of furniture, a few suitcases and boxes full of knick-knacks. They used to need two medium trucks (not the big juggernauts) back home when they would move; here they need a big van and their car. Anita’s a junkie, she collects stuff. Not junk, but she’ll keep all her homework, all the question papers she’d get from her teachers, things she’d use in her projects and models and anything she found interesting. Her mother calls her a junkie and she knows it too. When she was around 10 years old, she would collect bagfulls of stones that would look shiny or smooth or weird. Later she moved onto bringing home bagfulls of mica (shiny sand used to insulate electrical appliances) which she found near the school playground. It's hilarious to think how her mother would try not to say 'oh for goodness sake, not another sackfull of sand in the house!'

‘There’s the van, papa’s here. Here we go.’ Anita went downstairs to open the door. She had been supervising the vacuuming her sister was doing. Not nice to leave the house dusty. ‘Ok then big, large chunky things at the back and smaller stuff at the front, so lets start with the bed’. Following her father’s instructions, she went upstairs to get ready to help her dad carry the bed down. ‘Right, you can take the computer in the car; don’t carry the heavy stuff though’ her father told her. The van driver was going to help her dad carry the bed. ‘Ok, I’m going to take the computer things one by one to the car, you can make a queue of the stuff here, I won’t have to come all the way then’, Anita told her sis.

After the computer, Anita helped with the desks, lamps, suitcases and other stuff that was left. Her sister was busy with the bags of books, papers and other things she could manage. ‘That’s it, let me just have a last look and check that nothing has been left behind’, Anita thought to herself. She had a habit of double checking things. When younger, after picnics she would check the surroundings to see if anything had been left behind and usually she’d come back to the car with either one of her siblings shoes or a toy. The drawers were empty, the cupboards were bare and the window sills were naked. Nothing was left. She ran down and told her dad everything was out. ‘Good lets go then, who has the key?’ Anita got a key ring out from her jeans pocket with two keys. She gave them to her dad. Anita, her sister and her dad got in the car and the van driver got ready to follow them.

It wasn’t a long journey, about twenty minutes. Anita’s mother and brother were already at the new house. They were dropped by her dad before he went to get the van. The van driver opened the back of the van and both siblings started to load themselves with whatever they could. Anita’s mother was directing where the stuff was to be put to make organising later easy. The computers were Anita’s responsibility, so she got the car keys from her father and started to get things out one by one. First all the wires, then the lighter peripherals, then the rest. Her mother directed her to take everything upstairs. After everything was in the house, father paid the driver and everyone just slumped into chairs, sofas or just laid themselves on the floor.

Everyone re-hydrated themselves. It had been a hot day. But this heat was nothing compared to what it would be like at this time of year back home. Anita was all hyped up to get things assembled but her parents told her to calm down and take things slowly. She was told the same thing when carrying stuff from the old house to the van and from the van to the new house. She’s the time conserving type. Her father told her to take slow steps, no point rushing, risking dropping things and getting hurt. ‘And the next day you’d be aching all over’. Good advice, Anita had to remind herself of it ever so often.

As night fell, the kids started grumbling about their grumbling stomachs. They wanted noodles and their mother did made just that. Quick to prepare and always delicious, the kids loved them, especially without the peas and carrots and capsicum.

Bed time was eagerly welcomed by everyone. The parents prepared their bed and then the kids’. Their mother put down some bed sheets and 3 camp mattresses. The kids’ beds were left in the previous house; new beds had been ordered for them. The kids didn’t mind sleeping on the floor, they liked a bit of disruption to their usual sleeping habits. The disruption lasted for about a fortnight until their new beds arrived.

Next morning they woke up, not quite able to find the bathroom or whatever they were looking for. Half asleep they almost fell down the stairs looking for the bathroom or bump into walls looking for the other rooms. After breakfast they all told each other about how they got confused looking for things. Anita went on to say it was because of pro active interference, old data interfering with the registry of new data. This wasn’t showing off, she likes to use a defined term for things, it reduces the amount that needs to be said if the meaning of the word is known.

The next few days went by, assembling the furniture and buying things for the house. The beds were delivered. Everyone went out shopping for the bedding to match the rooms’ colour scheme. A new desk was bought for the computer, lamps for the kids’ desks. Slowly the new house was looking like home. It was the summer holidays so everyone helped in getting the house in order. The garden was being cleared too. New plants, manure, pots, seeds, and a garden tools were bought. Everyone was settling in and pro active interference was not much of a problem. On the weekends the whole family would go out, practice their tennis serves, back hand and fore hand strokes. A bit of cricket or football, skating or a stroll along the Thames was all very relaxing after all the assembling and re-assembling in the house. Nobody took it as a hassle; it was fun doing things together.

School and college preparations were going to start soon. Feet grew out of shoes, hands were too long for shirts and trousers were too tight. Pens, pencils, files were to be bought and holiday homework had to be put in order. Mum was making the kids sleep on time at night, getting the kids used to waking up early. It was still fine weather, so getting up in the morning was no problem. This was an important year for Anita, she was to decide which course she wanted to do and which university she wanted to do it from. She loved psychology but she also loved anything to do with aircrafts.

Back in college Anita caught up on things with her good friend Bell. She was happy just having one good friend who was very similar to her in terms of ideologies.

Anita always thought she would never be able to make friends here. Not because she was weird or anything, there were loads of weirdo’s around, but because she did not know if she’d find someone with whom she could share ideas and talk without any hesitation. Anita’s other friends (she’d regard them as situational friends), would ask her which school Anita and Bell went to because they got along so well. It seemed as if they had known each other since primary school. If something needed to be said sometimes a glance between them would be enough and if it was about something hilarious, they’d burst into laughter without saying anything. One could argue, what if they were laughing at different things? Well, they would sometimes double check that they were thinking of the same thing and most of the time they were. Bell helped Anita settle into life in this new country to some extent. Bell saw how children here behaved and was many a times shocked by what she saw. ‘Kids here are so disrespectful, there seems to be a distance between parents and their offspring. And some kids are made to pay rent after a certain age; not all kids are asked to pay but the idea of some parents asking for rent from their children is absurd. They are treated like any other adult. And some children treat their parents like any other adult. Generally speaking there is no respect here for elder people, be it teachers, parents or people walking on the streets’. One could say Anita suffered from a bit of acculturative stress. She knew it too. When having discussions with her friend she’d suggest that it was a bit difficult for her to comprehend how the society here worked. Both shared the same points of view. Kids are disrespectful and parents just let go. And the other thing they both thought was absurd was the fact that teachers were not allowed to be quite strict with children. What do the teachers do with unruly kids? No wonder this society is breaking down. One can say that’s being a behaviourist, stamping out bad behaviour. Well, yes it is. There has to be firmness, not just in verbal terms but in terms of action too.

Anita and Bell could go on talking about issues like that if there were no lectures to break it all up. They enjoyed their lessons and they were a treat to teach. Quiet in class, always gave in homework on time, well mannered, everything a teacher could dream for in a student. They were mischievous, but they knew their limits. They enjoyed learning and their teachers enjoyed teaching them.

The two friends would help each other with homework or presentations. Help each other revise for tests even if the subject was like Japanese to the other. They’d share notes, help each other with any sort of problem. They never really fought, maybe sometimes had heated discussions on some subject, but they would never stop talking to each other if their views didn’t match. They understood that the other person has a different point of view to things. ‘Having completely compatible friends would be boring. It’s good to have a balance of things we agree on and things we don’t. It’s nice to have healthy arguments or debates on certain subjects and on many issues we corroborate each others views. We learn a lot from each others different points too, broadens the thinking’, they’d say.

Bell had many friends from school, just like Anita. But all of Anita’s school friends were back home. ‘You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. My school friends were extremes, some were girly, some just dull. You’re a blend of everything,’ Bell would declare to Anita. They were both mixtures of all sorts of traits.

As the new year was drawing near, Anita had to decide between a psychology course or an aeronautics one. At first she had filled her university application form with psychology courses. She had even handed it in to her tutor. Then she thought about the ease with which one could get employed being a graduate in psychology. One could go into teaching but that was something she didn’t want to do. She could specialise and become a therapist. All this didn’t sound very solid to her. So she decided to take on an aeronautics course. She sat down with her parents to discuss which university and course would be best. Anita wasn’t sure if the universities would take her because she was not doing physics. But she did get interviews from all her chosen universities. Anita’s first choice university was where both her and Bell wanted to go. When the time came she sent off the forms letting the authorities know which university she wanted to go to and what her second choice was. Now, all that was needed was loads of revision and preparation for exams. When Anita was six, she had a plaque on her desk saying ‘if you fail to prepare, then prepare to fail.’ She didn’t have the plaque with her physically but she had it in her head. So she set out to prepare.

As summer came the exams got closer and closer. Anita and her friend stopped attending lessons and stayed at home. Anita’s siblings dared make any noise because they knew how angry that would make her. She kept loads of snacks near her desk. Sometimes her mum would bring her dinner to her in the bedroom if she was very much immersed in a maths question or if she was deciphering the hexadecimal code for something.

Exams were round the corner. She started to reduce the revision and started light reading. The exams came and went and it was a wonderful feeling to be free after a lot of hard work. Her parents had decided that everyone would go on holiday. And the place where they were going was what excited everyone. The flights were booked, packing was underway and everyone had a hop in their stride. Nobody could sleep the day before the flight, but Anita made sure she slept well because she would need to co-ordinate a lot of things in the morning. They booked a taxi in the morning and like all cabbies he was dot on time. The house had been cleaned from top to bottom a few days before so that when they came back the house would be spotless.

Anita’s grandfather was asked if he could come and water the plants regularly and he agreed. Everyone had put in a lot of effort in the garden and they were not going to let all the Fuchsia’s, Dahlias, Gladiolas and the rest dry up.

With everything settled they sat themselves down in the taxi with the luggage and were off. They checked in and were now waiting to pass through security. After that they browsed through the duty free shops and then made their way to the gates. The three kids sat near the windows to get a good view of the runway and of the planes being re-fuelled, loaded with luggage or just taxiing. The airline staff announced that families with children should make their way to the plane and so they did. On the way they picked up a few magazines and newspapers to help them pass the time on the plane.

The flight was fun. They saw flames coming from the oil rigs. They also saw other aircrafts flying. It’s altogether a different experience seeing another aircraft in the air when flying. They would sleep, read or just sit there looking out of the window. On landing, they were informed of the weather conditions. It was hot. But it was early morning so they knew it wouldn’t be too hot. They got there bags from the overhead compartments and made their way through. Many parts of the airport had been rebuilt. They passed through immigration, got their luggage and made their way to the exit. It wasn’t dark outside, it was hazy with clouds but they weren’t thick enough to cause precipitation. Weather wise it was quite pleasant. Everyone had been preparing themselves psychologically to be greeted by a wave of heat, as one feels when opening a pre-heated oven.

The family got hold of a taxi, two to be precise, and made their way to the bungalows they had rented out. On the way Anita was in deep thought, thinking about everything that had happened to her and others around her in the past two years. ‘I’m back home, I’ve really missed this place. The smell of everything is so beautiful. The sights and sounds are so pleasing to the eyes and ears’, she thought. She was in tears, controlled tears. She didn’t want anyone to see that she was crying. She remembered the nights she would just sit and tears would roll down her cheeks, thinking of all the things she had left behind. One could say, well if there is so much pain, get rid of the factor that causes it. The factor was staying away from home. Anita knew that moving to her new home was good and as she would say herself it is good to move to different places. ‘The pain would pass, I’ll understand’ she thought. She did understand but she just missed things. A mixture of emotions was flowing through her mind. She couldn’t put the feelings into words and she didn’t try. She watched the sun rise as the taxi made its way through the city; every street evoking a memory.

- Written on 20th March 2003