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so i was lying down in bed browsing google maps because i had nothing better to do, and i decided to zoom in on my grandparents' neighborhood. i saw their house, i saw the places my brothers and i used to take our bikes on and go, and the park where we would go and the minimelts vending machine we would buy every single time with broken A2 and C3 selections. i got to see it all through satellite, and it made me remember how much i miss that place.

all i really want is to be able to see them again. it's been nearly 2 years now. all i want is to go back to that house again. to play on the piano that was good, to sleep in the basement listening to the tick-tick-tock-tock of two out-of-sync clocks. to feel the sunlight shining on my neck between 9 and 11 AM in the summer when the sun would line up with the sky window to point at the dining table. to walk around, pacing, thinking, between the rooms lit with pale yellow 1980s-curtains-filtered sunlight and glowing with the pure essence of home. to sit at the computer, using ssh and browsing reddit through lynx to bypass the parental filters. i hate to realize it, but i don't remember the layout of that room anymore. was the computer on the left or the right?

i want to go to the basement bathroom, with its enchanting pink-tile-yellow-curtain decor straight out of the 1960s and grimy 'windows' that peeked up into the yard from underground. i want to go to the kitchen and sit at the table with the chairs perpetually wobbly, no matter how much we tried to screw that 4th leg tight. i want to go to the "guest room" and sit on the "nice couches" that no-one ever used. i want to go outside, to the shed, and help my granddad with his air-compressing machinery, in the musky shed with power lines running over the yard to power a single lightbulb inside, the shed filled to the brim with tools and appliances and generators beyond my wildest dreams as a child.

the dementia's killed that last hope forever though.

i want to sit and play chess with my granddad on the hand carved wooden chess set he won in a tournament in india. i want to write down recipes from my grandmom and learn how she made it perfect every single time. i want to listen to my granddad tell stories and my grandma sing lullabies and my granddad yell politics and my grandma lecture islam. i miss it so much. (and if you must know, my granddad was/is exceptionally based.)

i just wish i could go back to the simpler times