But I'll begin at the real beginning, on the dilapidated rooftops on an ordinary estate, in an ordinary neighbourhood in London. (...) I will never understand why my brother killed himself then, why he waited until that night to leave me. The way I saw it, for the two of us, all the bad stuff, the real tragedy, was over.
Coming to London should have been our fresh start, our new beginning. I remembered how very happy we were because we were going to Great Britain. I remembered the shock of finding ourselves alone in a small council flat in east London. Truth was, in many ways we lived better in Somalia, where despite years of war we were around familiar things that at least made life seem constant. In London we had to start all over.
Until I arrived here after a six-hour flight, I imagined a different universe of street parties, white girls with ponytails - and boyfriends - who ate chunky chocolate bars while jumping rope on lush, green grass; ice cream and fine wines and homes with tended hedges. (...)
Back to that night. The twin towers of Wanstead Flats, Forest Gate, east London. James and Ashvin best friends, stood on two separate roofs of the towers.
The binmen were expected; that muscular smell of refuse made it difficult to breathe. The smell drifted everywhere, covered everything, like concrete in your developed world. The horizon, as far as the eye could see, was enveloped in the gritty fabric of the London skyline at night, traces of the permanent stench, the stooping rhythms of failure: aerosol cans, empty plastic carrier bags, orphaned toys, rubbish everywhere (...); all scattered relics from battered lives.
from Forest Gate, by Peter Akinti
Coming to London should have been our fresh start, our new beginning. I remembered how very happy we were because we were going to Great Britain. I remembered the shock of finding ourselves alone in a small council flat in east London. Truth was, in many ways we lived better in Somalia, where despite years of war we were around familiar things that at least made life seem constant. In London we had to start all over.
Until I arrived here after a six-hour flight, I imagined a different universe of street parties, white girls with ponytails - and boyfriends - who ate chunky chocolate bars while jumping rope on lush, green grass; ice cream and fine wines and homes with tended hedges. (...)
Back to that night. The twin towers of Wanstead Flats, Forest Gate, east London. James and Ashvin best friends, stood on two separate roofs of the towers.
The binmen were expected; that muscular smell of refuse made it difficult to breathe. The smell drifted everywhere, covered everything, like concrete in your developed world. The horizon, as far as the eye could see, was enveloped in the gritty fabric of the London skyline at night, traces of the permanent stench, the stooping rhythms of failure: aerosol cans, empty plastic carrier bags, orphaned toys, rubbish everywhere (...); all scattered relics from battered lives.
from Forest Gate, by Peter Akinti
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