The House of Tomorrow

This piece first appeared in gal-dem’s UN/REST print issue

One night early in the new millennium, I was tearing through the streets of central London, running so fast it felt like I was flying. The black starry sky was melting into the purple streaks of early morning. I was breathless and lost and looking for something just out of reach. I stopped and squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them, I was looking down the street I grew up on, in a quiet suburb of London.

Then the knowledge poured into my brain, like the first burst of rain after a heatwave. I’d been looking for my dad all through the night, but he’d managed to stay just out of my sight. I kept following his voice, and it had brought me home. At the bottom of the stairs I could hear his footsteps somewhere above, always a few seconds ahead of me.

One morning soon after, I was having another detailed, technicolour dream about trying to my find my dad. It was becoming a habit. I was in the phase of sleep just before waking, when memory kicks in.

In those last moments before I abruptly woke up, I almost felt in control of the action. We’d been calling to each other up the staircase, a load of crossed wires and “What?” and “Can’t hear you!” like any other house before the day really begins. Then I’d gone up to see him, and we were talking in the hallway, as we’d done a…