Persecution and Abandonment

Persecution and Abandonment April 26, 2012

On a day like today twenty-one years ago I arrived to the United States with my family.  I wrote the essay below in 2001 for a creative writing class in college where I describe my experience returning to my house in Peru in 2000 after my father had repurchased it.

Built in 1970 when my parents married, my parents sold the house in 1993 and bought it back in 2000.  From 2000 to 2010 we owned the house once again and three major events happened at the house which I will forever remember: my sister’s wedding reception in 2003, my father’s death in 2004 and my ordination reception in 2009.

As I crossed the rotting, once magnificent brown and varnished gateway from the desolate, unpaved road, I miraculously stepped back roughly ten years in time. I once again entered the house where I had spent the first eight years of my life. After ten years of it being abandoned, left for roaches to rule over its floor and spiders to rule over its ceiling, I had returned.

Struggling flowers attempted to bloom as I strolled down the walkway between the gate and the main door. The buzzing bees labored persistently around the flowers that emitted a peculiar sweet smell despite their lack of upkeep. The bees attacked the purple and crimson flowers while leaving me unharmed. I approached the door and once again heard its unique sound when the key turned inside it. I turned the key quickly while I pulled the door towards me, creating a familiar low-pitched click signaling that the door was ready to be opened. The door swung open revealing a familiar yet distant world to me. Humidity and naphthalene rose through my nostrils as they escaped the house while I went past the door into the living room. It seemed from the odor that I had actually entered a closet with old clothes that had been stored for decades.

A sudden darkness overtook the house as I explored its hallways. The sound of my feet on the cold and dusty tiles resounded in every corner as I continued my rediscovery of the building. I took a right into my room. I gently closed my eyes and walked around the magnificent room feeling the air go past my face as if it were greeting me after longing for my return. In that stillness, I opened the doors of the wardrobe and the drawers of the desk, disturbing the peace of the air by creating unpleasant screeching sounds of wood rubbing against wood. I examined the delicate work of termites inside the furniture. They had done an astonishing task for the past ten years to rot the fine furniture. Tiny white larvae oozed out of holes in the wood, so I immediately slammed the drawers shut as a small shock of disgust ran down my spine. The drawers were not opened again until a carpenter came to restore the furniture.

As I continued walking through the house, I began hearing voices from the past. The sounds came from a distant place and slowly came clear to me, as when a radio is finally able to contact a station and play its music.  I heard laughter of children from my seventh birthday party as they enjoyed a puppet show, while a giant Smurf paraded around the backyard with a long line of children celebrating behind him. The cacophony of parties with many people surrounded me, such as my father’s twenty-fifth year high school reunion when people gathered at the garden of my house to celebrate with fine Peruvian cuisine and Spanish rock and roll music.  Voices and sounds of old times zoomed between my ears, as I recalled family reunions with relatives now deceased.  Memories impossible to repeat were infused into my thoughts.

At last, I arrived at the pool. Chlorine roamed throughout the enclosed area. The silence in the room haunted my mind. Memories that will never be repeated poured into my senseless mind. My thoughts erupted as I walked near the pool and leaned over to touch the freezing water while the rugged floor penetrated my knees. The silence of the room was foreign to me since it had always been full of splashes and screaming. As I lifted my head from leaning over, goose bumps became visible throughout my body as my eyes roamed unceasingly around the silent room. A gentle buzz that is only heard in utterly silent places began to increase. My mind drifted away as memories engulfed it. My body merely became a lump of material as my mind gradually escaped it. It was unbelievable I had returned.  Neither my mind nor body could handle the joy and pleasure I derived from returning to my house in Peru.

I continued the rediscovery of my abandoned building. I stepped outside into the garden where my swings had been and where I had spent countless hours running and sprinting while playing childish games. I found that there was no giggling of children at play or squeaking of rusty swings.

As I looked through the window into the family room, I heard fragments of weeping from April of 1991, when in that room my mother announced that we would leave Peru due to my father’s unjust persecution by terrorists. We would leave in a few days without telling a soul, and we could only take one suitcase containing basic necessities. We would abandon the house without any plans of returning to it.

As I turned away from the window, I quickly noticed that silence had also ruled over my house for ten years along with creeping roaches and spiders that had slowly and quietly conquered the house. The three had a vast dominion to oversee.  The silence had to be challenged with liveliness as the roaches and spiders had been already challenged with pesticide. As the last rays of the sun reflected on the windows of the house, and the salty breeze of the ocean glided through the garden, I reminded myself that soon I would be living once again in this house. I also noticed that the ten years that I had abandoned it would only be a gap in time, which would soon be forgotten both by myself and by the house, since its past splendor would reemerge.

Pictures are mine, all rights reserved.


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