Moving in (solo)

So here it was; the space that would be his. It was a typical student dorm room bed, desk, nothing special. But in the end this was his personal space, so even if it was small and resembled all the other rooms on this floor, it was important. His case had already been brought up and rested against the end of the bed. He took another minute to try and memorize this moment as best possible, he wanted to remember what it looked and felt like now so that he could see how it slowly became his.

After that all that was left to do was unpack, not that there was much in the case. The first thing he did however was to grab his iPod and speakers from the backpack. He settled them on the bedside cabinet and flicked through the song selection. He stopped at the album entitled Soul-Ri by the artist known as Ali. She was one of the up and coming stars of Korean music and she gave off a very a very Duffy type vibe. Listening to Korean music kept him in touch with his roots and there was an equal amount of Kpop and occidental music on his playlists.

Now that he had a bit of musical encouragement unpacking seemed a bit less depressing. As he lifted on to the bed the case seemed depressingly light. He figured that a trip to buy more clothes would have to happen in the not so distant future. At least his mother had promised a comfortable allowance that would mean he could get some nice clothes. He had not taken the time to fold anything in before throwing it in the bag. So now he had to go through the motion of folding every item before putting it away. He hated folding but then again he hated creases more, which made him wonder if he was going to be the only male student here who was freakish enough to iron his clothes. Oh well he’d find out sooner or later.

Once the small piles of clothes had been put neatly in the closet, he turned to the other items that littered the bottom of the bag. A few books quickly placed on a shelf, quite a hefty amount of toiletries put next to the wash basin. A calendar (next years) featuring the world greatest natural wonders tacked to the wall. Then all that was left was the very small bundle of printed photos that he had brought with him. Sure he had other photos but they were mostly stored on the hard drive of his laptop. These ones were old. Printed back in the days when you took pictures and has to wait until they were developed to see if they were any good.

He had loved the wait and the suspense as you took out the pictures and tried to remember what you had been trying to capture. Digital was good because you were sure that you could keep shooting and checking until you got the perfect picture. But it took out some of the magic. The pictures he held now were of the days his family had been complete. He missed those days. But there was no point in wanting to turn back time; every event that happened allowed you to grow. All you needed to do was keep moving forward. That was what he was doing wasn’t it? Moving forward?

The album that had been playing in the background came to a halt, leaving only silence and awkward questions hanging unanswered.