A special place you’d, found, by “accident”, because of the outbreaks, that you’d, never know about the purpose of from before the outbreaks started happening…translated…
I live in a twenty-five story residential apartment, for me, a toolman of my household, other than fixing up the pipes, turning off the water meters, when I needed to head over to the roof, I’d, normally not thought about going up there. After all, the “rooftop” is a sort of a “forbidden zone” in my mind, every time the typhoon rumbled at the entrance to the roof, with the doors clanking away the entire night, I don’t know how, the residents of the twenty-fifth floor dealt with it. Plus, although there’s that high fence set up on the rooftop, but the height of the fences, are of a sort of a “feared imagination”, every time I’d gone up there, I’d felt, ill-at-ease, and I’d, turned the switch on and off the water meters, then, quickly, made my way down from there.
From before the outbreaks, my children asked me curiously once, “can we go up there and see too?”, turned out, I’d once told them, if needed, we can, go through the rooftop, passing through the tunnels connecting our building to the building adjacent, so we can make our escapes down to the first floor safe and sound. And, although I’d worried, that they will soon find out of that stairway leading up there, that they may climb up out of curiosity to play, and put themselves in harms’ way, but, once evening, I finally, couldn’t, turn their curious requests away, took my children up to the roof to see. But, the two young children looked around, and saw the roof, with the square looking water reserve, they’d felt bored, soon enough, and called that they wanted to go home; it seemed, that what’s, drawing them, was that, “unknown” then.
The building had twenty-five floors, with the rooftop, it’s, twenty-six, this is, the highest location in this area, from the left, there’s, that hilltop, the right, you can see the entire city. Because it’s the highest point, we can see other building’s roof too, some were painted over with the waterproof paints, with the potted plants, stacked up with belongings, while the love songs of “Rooftop”, those antennas, already, replaced with the digital, and there are only, the clothing rods, with the quilts big and small hung there, blown by the wind.
As the outbreaks started, everybody is kept locked in at home, and, at most, we’d done some weight training exercises, jump ropes, I’m sure, that residents living below us would have to complain on that, until one day, my wife thought, hey, maybe we could go to the roof to jump rope, the ground was thicker all right, if my daughter jumped the ropes in the passage, then, it wouldn’t, affect anyone.
I took my children up to the twenty-fifth floor on the elevators, then, hiked up a set of steps, then, seeing that nobody was there, in a jiffy, they’d started, whipping the ropes. It’s just, that in only a little bit, the June sun came down, and the roof got too overheated, and we’re all, having the troubles then.
your own, personal, haven, high, above the rest of the, world…
As we ran off the roof, I’d posted on FB, that our family went for the exercises, a friend who wrote also left the message of doing the same, that he’d come across, seven, to eight individuals who’d gone up to the roof to do the same as he, and, it’d become, a crowd, so he could only, run downstairs. That’s when I discovered, that all of us, Face friends are, connected, that we’d, all switched into our workout clothes, gone up to the roof, hoola hooped, used the elastic bands to stretch, did yoga, these sorts of activities easily done at home, going up to the roofs to do, it surely, was, different. I’m thinking, we’re all, enjoying, this “mirage of a freedom”, being able to, “move around”.
Or maybe, it’s the outbreaks that’s, kept us all locked in at home, the density of the residential became thicker, the mobile networks slowed down, my daughter’s online classes all froze. And also because of the outbreak, I’d started, getting, acquainted with my own rooftop too, one evening, the signals were awful, I carried my cell, tried the signals everywhere, quite odd, that as I’d gone up to the rooftops, walked toward the streets, the signal was 10M, walked five meters to the other side of my building, then, the bandwidth became only 0.2 M.
For the sake of having a strong enough signal, I’d, stood by the edge of the roof, gazed toward the city in the distances, it was deep in the night, while the lights still shone bright as the stars, this is, how odd the times became, because everybody’s locked in at home because of the outbreaks, it’s also a time for me, to rediscover things I already knew. Even after many years, as the outbreaks are, long gone away, whenever I go up to the roof, I’m sure, I shall remember, this, hard to put into words, time.
And so, you’d, found a new use, for the roof of your building here, and, even though, you probably won’t go up there too often, but at least, you now know, that there’s, that space that belonged to you, and you alone, that you can, head to, when you need.
Life, the Obstacle Course 