Borderline
Grown-up people would burst into laughter, rolling on the ground. Back then, I didn't quite understand, but I would laugh along with them – we’d all laugh together. I never really grasped what was so endlessly funny, but they were happy, and I was happier still. We were in a house with a garden. My uncle had this old caravan with flat tires; the toilet inside smelled dreadful, and its door was always left wide open. At night, everyone would gather around it, sitting on its threshold, drifting in and out. And then there were the roses – roses whose fragrance I have never forgotten, wrapping the whole garden in sweet perfume.
Days slipped into weeks, and weeks turned into years, then decades. First, the caravan was cleared away. Then the roses were cut down, and in their place, their children erected concrete houses snatched from urban renewal – farting through botoxed faces right where the roses once bloomed in passion, releasing their sweet scent to the sound of laughter.