I decided to go back to the place I grew up in. It wasn't easy getting there. I remembered the suburb but was it behind my old school or in front of it? Was it to the left or to the right of the intersection? I totally forgot and so I drove around for about twenty minutes listening to the Glee soundtrack until finally it came to me and I took a right and then did a u-turn and then a left and down that road with the speed bumps and there I was. I lived in a townhouse, a really ugly townhouse which was cool at the time I guess. It had green carpet and bamboo wallpaper. I loved it there and I have so many memories from so many years in the townhouse, but all are vague, like half-forgotten dreams. They are all half-formed memories which seem to mix with my imagination to form kind of surrealistic globs of stories in my head. So my picture is of a park inside the townhouse complex, right up the top and on the corner. The park always empty. There was no play equipment because I suppose they figured the kids could play or something. We never did because there was a much better park and a river down a secret path at the back of one of the townhouses. 

Funny thing is that I remember that little park so, so well even though I never played it in. I remember it better than almost anything else in my childhood. That's probably because i had a nightmare about it. It is the only nightmare I have ever had that I have never forgotten. My family and I were all playing in the park for some reason and then this american police car arrived which was strange since I lived in Australia. We didn't trust them and started to run which is a good thing because the american police car turned into an alien police car and the aliens started to chase my mother and I remember my mum screaming and telling me to run and running with my sister and my dad and some friends down the hill and then the Aliens caught them. And I kept running and head in this little white enclove which look like a chapel, where we had all our letterboxes. And I could hear them scream and somehow I knew the aliens were taking over their bodies. So then I had this horrible idea that I would need to go home for dinner or mum would be angry but mum was an alien now so how would I have dinner with an alien family and pretend everything was normal? So I guess that's why today I don't remember which townhouse I lived in (was it 5 or 7 or maybe it was 6 but definately not 4 or 8). But I remember the park.

I live overseas now and have for a long time. I haven't spent my last 4 birthdays nor my last 4 christmases at home. I love it and I love my life and my friends overseas and it has its hurdles sometimes but overall it's really good. So I'm glad that the little girl who didn't play in that park has grown up but I have to admit I was happy to find my old townhouses where there were, exactly as they were totally unchanged as if all this years were just a blink of an eye, as if they have been waiting in suspended animation for me to come home again. I'm going back overseas now and I wont see that park for a long time but I hope it stays the same just as it's always been, like I remember it.

Corner sent by Sarah.