I’ve moved into lots of places before but never somewhere that’s not my own. I packed up my stuff and drove the 10 minutes to my new residence. I got here and was ready to put away my clothes and shoes and the little things that make places look like I live in them, but someone had already been doing that in this room for about 10 years.
Yudai told me about these tours they used to have at Chernobyl. You can pay someone to take you into old preschool classrooms where the finger paints and crayons are still out on the tables, or houses where dinner is still on the table and the phone is laying off the hook from getting the phone call telling them to leave everything behind and run for safety. The tour company went bankrupt because people got so creeped out that no one ever finished a tour. Being surrounded by evidence of someone’s life that they got up and walked (or ran) out of is just weird.
I’m now living in a room full of the ghosts of someone else’s past life. The volleyball jerseys are from the rival high school, the Jones Soda bottles are Cherry instead of Green Apple, and the American Girl books are about Kirsten instead of Samantha. The “Good Luck at State” posters all say “Jessica” instead of “Swope,” which makes me jealous because I always wanted to be the girl who went by her long name but I was the girl everyone called by her last name (those are two very different girls).
On a brighter note, I have cable about 10 feet away from my room, the spice rack is organic and alphabetized, and my apartment is still furnished and available for out of town visitors.
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