Entry #49

Space
by Rebecca Hendricks


So I’m standing in the doorway, right? I’m looking out at the space between the back door and the next house and the warehouse that butts up against us, everything kinda jumbled with this cold space in the middle, no exits, just a space outside the kitchen door at the back of the flat we’ve rented since I was eleven.

My new apartment is about the same size.

I can hear the murmur that’s Dad’s voice through the wall, and then Sarah’s. She’s pretty pissed. There’s a thud, and a voice shouts in Russian and another one responds from out the front. Those’re the engineering students Dad hired for the move. They’re so slow that Sarah and I have been joking “they’re not rushin!” for several hours, but it’s stopped being funny. They’re getting the boxes mixed up, Dad’s and Sarah’s and mine, but I’m looking out at the forgotten concrete space and thinking about the shape of the telescope in my arms from when Dad and me sat out here in the cold.

I saw the spot on Jupiter.

I saw the shadow of a moon.

Then we had an argument, and the images got blurred.

So I’m thinking there’ll be no more arguments. I’m listening to the murmur of Dad’s voice and my sister’s and thinking about how there’ll be other voices in my new wall. And I’m looking at the forgotten space between houses. It looks lonely.

So now I’m turning. I close the door behind me.


[Rebecca is a Torontonian in the South. She is studying something called "Information Design and Communication" and is on the verge of launching a freelance career as a proofreader and copy editor. What she really wants to do is illustrate stories and act in movies, but whatever communicates the story is the best part, always. When you boil it all down --as she always wind up saying despite herself: how hard can it be?]