Apart from the occasional neighbor filling up their trucks, leaving yet another house emptied, you don’t see much hustle and bustle in these flat terrains. 

Especially after our youngest one, Jena, turned 18 and left for the big city to pursue her big girl dream. Last she told me, she finally landed herself work at a bar where her pay’s been good enough to live out her days beyond what she calls “this hellhole”. She says it’s easier there, where youngsters like her get respect for talking big and where the smiles are filled with sweeter promises. She’s ambitious, that one. I reckon being tied down your whole life does that to you. 

So it’s funny how ninety-year-old Linguini, the oldest of our bunch, never really thought about the town like that, which, to be fair, was different decades ago. Linguini used to be a gold-medal runner in his prime years, when folks would gather from all sorts of places just to see him cross the finish line. He would always beat the other contestants black-and-blue, and the crowd would go wild, shouting his big name across town all the way ’til supper. The other old folks and I joke that he is still our celebrity after all these years because, despite being bedridden for the rest of his days, we still find him trying to get out of bed looking to catch the next big race. On mornings like that, he looks around the house for his best running shoes, muttering under his breath the whole time,“I’m going to be late!” Subsequently, when he gets too tired to walk out the front door and has to take his shoes off, he’ll look at us and laugh, “I know I’ll beat it next time.” Even as the town changed around us and people moved on, Linguini’s determination to get up never faltered. Ultimately, it was him that showed us what it means to truly love living, against all odds. 

A lot of people are slowly starting to think this way again, not just him. Like Gloria, who’s been whipping up different lobster cooking techniques, testing out all sorts of lobster cracking gadgets, all as to fill in the empty afternoons. And Arty, who has never read a darn sentence in his life, picking up a hobby of collecting books, to have something new to look forward to. Or Dan, that old soul who never could stop complaining, getting a pet cockatoo for the sake of having someone to talk to. 

It gets me wondering what has kept me trying so hard to live on like this. It’d be so easy to excuse it for the nostalgia of the mundane, staying here for the town that it used to be, but that isn’t true. The memories this town gave me don’t override the little things I have right now. When the sounds of Jena’s familiar laughter ring through the telephone spinning all sorts of tall tales, I can’t help but laugh, because that’s all I have ever wanted to give her. When Linguini invites me in with that ecstatic chuckle of his as he lists his neverending run-ins and run-ons, I ask him to tell me more. And when another neighbor packs their bags and leaves another house emptied, I shrug my shoulders and carry on. Not because things are better, but because they’re still here, and for now, so am I. 

Edited by Jayna Miller