Back to School
written by: Clara Arús
“Girls, please hang your towels on the railing and take off your swimsuits before dinner,” we would hear every evening as we rushed through the dark green door and started scattering our wet paraphernalia on the different mimbre chairs of the living room. Our only concern was to gulp down our dinner fast enough to be able to rush back out that same door in time to meet our friends again. “Sacar la basura” (take out the trash), we would call it, I think maybe once someone might’ve actually taken out the trash during our late-night walks, but it mostly consisted of us frolicking around the village on our various wheeled contraptions lollipop in our mouth. So every evening we would rush up the cold stone stairs, striding over two/three steps at a time while screaming “primer!”, “según”, “tercer”. Whoever had been the cleverest that day would already be opening the faucet and letting the clear water trickle down and reach the stained bottom of our bathtub. My bedroom was at the very far left of the corridor, and after closing the janky wooden door, I would sit down on the multitoned parquet to twirl and twiddle into my fresh clothes on the ground, too lazy to just roll down the blind. The space was limited, the big intimidating bookshelf stood elegantly against the wall, carrying, amongst many other books, my favorite childhood collection “la bibliotèque rose” and her ugly cousin “la bibliotèque verte.” Next to that was hidden my flimsy electric keyboard that I would sometimes play loud enough after Carlos once told me he loved hearing me play. The bed subtly smelled of wood stain mixed with a semi-stuffy basement stench and creaked like a rusty gate at any toss or turn, and matched with the nightstand, which shared a similar smell. The desk, on the other hand, was a new piece of furniture that was probably sold under a Swedish name in the near past. But my only piece of interest on those late summer evenings was the two built-in closets whose curtains I would abruptly swing open to stuff my old clothes in carelessly before rushing down the stairs and taking a seat around the dining table. Unfortunately, that night, my mother pronounced our most feared statement that would come around every beginning of September, “Les filles, starting next week, no more going out after 10:30.”
- Back to School - November 3, 2025
- The Interloper – Before and After - June 11, 2025
