HOME | DD

Description
I was coming home for the first time in eight years. Home. After all this time, I still remember just what home looks like. The black pavement of the street leading up to a cracked cement driveway of our house, the blue door, the big window facing the city skyline… I remembered it all. I kept my scrapbook with me all this time just so I wouldn’t forget. My mother laughed at me. She said I was foolish and that we would see home again soon. Why did it matter whether I remembered what home looked like or not? “It matters to me,” I would always answer. Home was home, and I wanted to pick up life exactly where I left off.

You can’t imagine how happy I was. We had been traveling in space for years on end. I had seen things most people only dream of, of course, planets, aliens, drifter ships, and the like, but growing up in space lacks a certain atmosphere. No, not atmosphere like Earth atmosphere, though I suppose that would also be accurate, but that’s not what I meant. It’s hard to explain what I mean, because I never really experienced it. I wish I could explain what I mean. It’s… warm? No…. fuzzy? No, that just sounds stupid. Happy doesn’t work either, because I was happy during my childhood. It’s a hard concept to grasp, but it comes so naturally to everyone who had the privilege of growing up on Earth.

My mother, little brother, and I had been visiting some friends when we left. My father and little sister had both caught a cold and decided to stay at home. We said goodbye, thinking nothing of it, and left for the afternoon. Our friends lived on a neighboring planet, so we boarded the spaceship and took off. I watched Earth out of the window until it finally shrunk into a tiny blue marble in the distance. I didn’t realize that it would be the last time I saw Earth or my father and sister in a long time.

Description
I was coming home for the first time in eight years. Home. After all this time, I still remember just what home looks like. The black pavement of the street leading up to a cracked cement driveway of our house, the blue door, the big window facing the city skyline… I remembered it all. I kept my scrapbook with me all this time just so I wouldn’t forget. My mother laughed at me. She said I was foolish and that we would see home again soon. Why did it matter whether I remembered what home looked like or not? “It matters to me,” I would always answer. Home was home, and I wanted to pick up life exactly where I left off.

You can’t imagine how happy I was. We had been traveling in space for years on end. I had seen things most people only dream of, of course, planets, aliens, drifter ships, and the like, but growing up in space lacks a certain atmosphere. No, not atmosphere like Earth atmosphere, though I suppose that would also be accurate, but that’s not what I meant. It’s hard to explain what I mean, because I never really experienced it. I wish I could explain what I mean. It’s… warm? No…. fuzzy? No, that just sounds stupid. Happy doesn’t work either, because I was happy during my childhood. It’s a hard concept to grasp, but it comes so naturally to everyone who had the privilege of growing up on Earth.

My mother, little brother, and I had been visiting some friends when we left. My father and little sister had both caught a cold and decided to stay at home. We said goodbye, thinking nothing of it, and left for the afternoon. Our friends lived on a neighboring planet, so we boarded the spaceship and took off. I watched Earth out of the window until it finally shrunk into a tiny blue marble in the distance. I didn’t realize that it would be the last time I saw Earth or my father and sister in a long time.