Malayali in London ~ Part-8

Chapter-2:

… House in London …

After freshening up, William heads off for his interview along with dad, mum goes to the grocery store and I wander about in the neighbourhood. Dad told us that his friend would be here in the evening, and it’s only eleven in the morning, they won’t be here until five. I walk down the streets, hoping to find somewhere quiet. I have the location of the house saved in my phone in case I’m not able to find my way back, though I probably won’t need it since I’m pretty good at remembering directions. It’s a lot colder here. It’s usually raining in Kerala at this time, but it’s summer here, but it’s nothing like the summer in Kerala, the winter there seemed warmer.

I reach a kid’s playground which is completely abandoned. I smile, the memories of my time playing at the local playground all return to me. I look around to see if anyone’s there, I see no one so I walk towards the swings and sit on one. I gently kick at the ground to make the swing, well, swing. I do that for about fifteen minutes, it’s nice to have some peace and quiet. So far, I don’t hate moving, but that’s because I haven’t seen the other side of it yet. I haven’t tried making friends, it’s going to be really hard and I know I’m going to regret trying all together; so, I don’t want to. I mean not that I’m not a person who people won’t want to make friends with, I can just be a little rude sometimes.

I stop the swing and just sit there, watching the trees sway in the winds with so much grace, that it makes you feel inferior to them. I like it when nature makes me feel inferior.

        My peace is interrupted by someone coming in from the other gate, the one away from the swings. It’s a boy, a handsome one too. He’s too far away for me to make out most of his appearance.

The boy has jet black hair and a fair yet warm skin tone (I’m not being a racist here), he seems pretty skinny, like myself, but I make out that he’s tall. He seems to think he is alone, but he’s not. He also just broke my solitude. He turns around and stops in his tracks when he sees me. I think he’s a little shocked. I’m guessing it’s because no one is usually in this park. He walks over, and the closer he gets, the more his picture becomes clear. He claims the swing next to me and just sits there in silence for a minute. I don’t look at him but I know he just kicked his swing because of the creaking sound it just made, and I know he’s watching me. He stops swinging and throws a question at me, “are you new here?” That’s kind of ironic, really, I knew that would be the first question he asked. My back stiffens, I’m clearly uncomfortable talking to a random stranger, especially a boy, and yet I reply, “do I look like I’ve lived here?” He flinches when I say that, I can tell he didn’t expect that as an answer. “Um, well… I haven’t seen you here before” I let out a frustrated breadth, “well, how could you, I only moved here yesterday.” He flinches again, I can see that he didn’t expect me to be rude. Oh no, I wasn’t supposed to be rude. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude, I’ve just had a tiring week.” He relaxes after I say that like he was praying that the behaviour I just showed isn’t my actual personality. He smiles and says, “it’s alright we all have those times,” I laugh when he says that. He raises and eyebrow and asks, “why are you laughing?” I smile and answer, “well, as for me, I have those times half of the time, especially when I’m around new people. I’d rather just climb a tree and talk to its branches than talk to a random stranger, and trust me when I say that I’ll be more respectful to a bunch of twigs than to the ruler of the UK.” He laughs at my comment and asks another question, “you certainly have a thing for sarcasm and satire. But anyway, where to live? Somewhere around here?” I shake my head, “actually I live about twenty minutes from here. I had been wandering around the neighbourhood until I found this place.”