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David Olamide Craig | Klo4

I visited the neighbourhood I grew up in, a few months ago. It felt so good to walk along the same streets where my childhood memories were formed, and the joy of seeing old friends again was quite literally beyond words. I found myself strolling casually along the many routes I had run through as a child: the route to school, the route to my best friend’s house, the route to the playground… and as I walked each path my memory would dig up fascinating events from my childhood. As I reminisced, it was almost as though I was transported right back to those moments, reliving them vividly, complete with sights and sounds and smells.

Ah! Third Avenue! I find myself having to contain bubbling peals of laughter. One of my most horrendously embarrassing memories occurred here. Imagine me, in my school uniform, running frantically, yelling at the top of my lungs, tears streaming down my face, being chased by a puppy.

I walked past a house that seemed strangely familiar, and as I inched towards the wrought iron gate, I was filled with a deeper sense of nostalgia. I remembered a pretty young girl in a beautiful yellow dress that stopped short of her knees, spinning in circles on the green grass of the lawn, her hair twirling as she did. I heard our screaming voices as we chased after the rickety ice cream van on a hot July afternoon and her ringing laughter filled my ears as I remembered our games of hide and seek and hop-scotch-jump. I struggled to retrieve her name  I took a long, hard look at the large white duplex, soaking up my bright and sunny reverie, half expecting to see my friend bounding through the front doors, running out to greet me. The doors stayed shut and when after a few moments no one came, I contented myself with attempting to squeeze out any more delightful memories that lay behind those double doors. Instead, ominous images flooded my mind in crisp detail, images I had long forgotten, images I am glad I can now recall.

I remember walking into that same house as a child; I remember the peculiar sensation of my naked feet on the threadbare rug. Her father had insisted that everyone take their shoes off at the door. I remember thinking then that this was because he didn’t want his already worn carpet to get any worse. Thinking about it now though, I reckon it was more for religious reasons than for housekeeping. Usually, there would be no one in the living room, but the television was almost always on. We would come in and sit down at the foot of the old box, my friend and I, and try to keep the giggles in as we watched cartoons.

On this day, I took my shoes off at the door as usual and tiptoed into an all too familiar living room, and as expected; it was empty, or was it? Slender shards of amber sunlight, muffled by the thick green curtains barely lit the room and the dimness took a while to get accustomed to. When my eyes adjusted, I saw what I’m certain was the silhouette of two people hurriedly putting clothes on. It took quite a while for my brain to compute what I had seen, and I dare say only now, a full twenty three years later, do I really understand what happened that sunny afternoon.

“What were you doing?” I asked her innocently later that day as we sat in front of the television, watching Super Ted.

“Oh! nothing…” she said smiling, “I was just playing with my Dad, we do it all the time”

I remember her name now. Her name was…

 

*A tribute to all victims of incest and childhood sexual abuse.

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