The Folk at No.34

The wall where the dartboard hung is freshly plastered and painted. Divots from a shocking aim were a parody of my pock-marred face before the repair—the wall, not the face). The dartboard was dumped along with the misguided darts in the skip outside No.34, (they are divorcing, and she’s dumping everything of his), but I don’t like the hypocrisy though: I had a...connection with the wife of No.34 and this makes me a bad friend to him, well no friend at all really.

She was from Goa and younger than me...I miss her curls, mahogany skin and accent...and ...and...in general, I miss her, and the way we would share stuff...just silly stuff. Like the crap teens and angsty 20-somethings, mull over. We’d kiss through playlists, top ten films, holidays we’d take, cruises we’d sail, famous beaches we’d build castles on, and laying next to them, how we’d name the stars after making love; and how many kids we’d have, and what we’d name them. It was an escape, a rabbit hole we could get lost in...but you can never stay lost too long. He was also—the friend/ex-friend— in my failed darts team endeavour, and it was his poor aim which helped ruin the wall. Ruin...pfft...that word is in my blood, future, and past.

Anyway, the darts and the board are dumped, and in their place, a bookshelf is a final gauze covering any memory that a dartboard was ever there, making it easier to pretend games were never played in this room, with the inhabitants of No.34. 

But life goes on. As so do the memories.