Childhood Bedroom

I was nine when Mama decided to wash the whole house in light pink. My room was not spared. Pink was nice but too girly and the sudden colour change, I took as intrusion. So on a hot summer day, while my siblings were busy with Gameboys, I picked up my spare acrylic paints and bastardised the immaculate walls.

My choice of design were flowers in red, yellow, and blue intertwined with green swirling vines. The intention was to paint from one end of the door to another, in an endless route that passed the windows and spread across the room. It served as a demarcation, a line to differentiate my paradise from the rest of the house.

Day and night, I painted with instinct.  A little swish of paint here, a little contour there… I repeated swirls that worked and relished the accomplishment of perfecting some flowers. Nothing stopped me, not my siblings seeking refuge, not the rain, not the rampage beyond the door, not the heat, not sleep. The more things happened at the other side of the wall, I more I painted. The more I painted, the more detached I became. And as my canvass filled with vines, the more it belonged to me.

My paint dried out after a week, exactly after I dabbed the last petal on a blooming red flower. It was already dark and the screams have dissipated. The house was still and waiting. Mama entered my sanctuary when I was already on the bed.

“I’m sleeping here tonight.”

As she crawled into my grove, I ruminated how to paint the ceiling to mimic the Milky Way and how to make the paint stand out in the dark. And as Mama whimpered and the acrylic dried, I closed my eyes and savoured the comfort of being surrounded by beautiful things. - 8/9/2016