When I didn't want to get up for school in the morning

When I didn’t want to get up for school in the morning in primary school, my mother would put a very dim light on in my room and braid my hair while I was napping so I could get a little more sleep.

When my tooth would fall out I would put it under my pillow and sit on my bed in complete darkness, look out the window at the sky and ask for the tooth fairy to bring me a present, then wake up to a gift that my parents would buy the day before, and it was always exactly what I wanted. I told my friends at school that the tooth fairy was real — I swore I never told my parents what I wanted as a gift and would nevertheless always get that exact thing in exchange for my tooth.

When I tell my father anything I am unhappy with, he never knows what to say in return, instead he keeps quiet. But a few days later he brings it up again, like he was thinking about this the whole time. He never ends up saying anything coherent, or something that would cheer me up, but he really was thinking about it the whole time.

When I come back home after being away for months, my parents always meet me at the airport, and from a distance I can see my father smiling at me, so happy to see me. I don’t see him smile often, only when he sees me or has something funny to tell my mum.

My room in my home had bamboo walls, they are orangy brown and make the warm light from the pendant chandelier even warmer. When the light is dim I think about it.