A page from a journal, torn #2
on an interesting subject that is a key
I was keyless. On the 13th of August, I left Melbourne and Greeves St, and the keys I have been using for the past 5 months. It was three keys. Two too many because only one opened the front door. I never bothered to check what the other two were for. But they dangled nicely together so I kept them that way. Three keys, two too many, one door, through which the wind flew by day and night.
There were never keys for me growing up. Someone was always home. All the days except Wednesdays Grandma’s hair saloon was open - I would go through the tiled rooms filled with hair spray and hair bits sticking up the soles of my shoes, past the door too small for anyone (jars of jam next to the cans of hair dye), past the bathroom where dad would shower years later to take off COVID, past more jam and pickles and up the stairs. And on all the days and Wednesday Mum was home. Or Grandpa was home - watching TV on his chair with the dog looking up at him from the corridor. That of course changed when he died a few years back, the dog still likes the warm part of the rug.
On some days when the house was full but deaf, the rings of the bell unheard lost between the walls, I would climb over the fence. A 12-year-old girl found stuck on a fence trying to get into her house. But that never happened. I would climb over the lowest part, sometimes scratching my knees or stretching my pants, and feel like a thief on my own property. The front door usually stayed wide open on days like this. They were summer days when people sat out in the garden or hid in between the cold walls. I would sneak in silently.
Keys always felt like a treasure. Out of ordinary. Your pocket heavier with them inside, poking through jeans, sticking out of backpacks. Only the good kids got them. Only the responsible ones that went back to empty houses with soups to microwave unlike me who had the soup on the stove as soon as I started taking off my shoes. Perfect temperature soup and questions. Silence was the teenage currency and I was given none.
Melbourne keys were connected with a metal shaped like a star. I didn’t take it away and left it for a new roommate.
twinkle, twinkle little star
I got my first pair of keys in high school. There was a key to the front gate - useless, as you could easily open the front gate by sticking your hand in between the bars and handling the key that was always stuck on the other side. Then the key to the front door and a big piece of plastic that opened the gate. In winter when the gate froze we would have to open it manually. Rock, paper, scissors in the car.
We stored all of our keys in the wardrobe on the veranda. There was a willow-lined basket where we would drop the keys into. Mum, Dad, my brother and I. Grandma kept her separate, as if aware of the chaos. We would always mix the keys up. Mum’s became Dad’s became mine and I would take whichever. Investigations were held when a pair would get lost, but then they always came back or multiplied - new pairs appeared, yet we never sent for copies.
On that bus, on the 13th of August, I checked my belongings many times. Each time I left the 11-hour bus I counted - phone, wallet, headphones - and each time I felt a space for the keys but there were none. A star-shaped keychain left behind. I was going around a few grams lighter. Not much, but some nonetheless.
In the 26 days during which I traveled up the Australian East Coast, I stayed in 6 hostels. The one in Sydney used no keys, each door would open with a phone and Bluetooth - a nightmare for those who frequent the small numbers of the battery. There was one more keyless hostel - the one in Cairns - cards for a change. The 4 others had regular keys, although the one in Agnes Water never saw a key being turned around in a door. Bare feet and a lot of trust.
Each hostel always assigns a penalty for losing a key. It’s always something that evokes fear. Who has 150 or even worse, 200 dollars to spare on losing a piece of metal that opens and closes a door? Thus a link is formed. Keys are important and they are not to be lost. You are assigned your own key and trusted to keep it close and safe. Keys are to be safeguarded.
Looking back at the keys I have had - the home one, the Amsterdam one (key record: 5!), and the Melbourne one - I can now say: that I have never lost a key. I have definitely acted as if I have lost one - in the middle of a street on a hot (or better rainy, more dramatic) with my bag laid on the scorching (or again wet) tiles frantically going through things that keep going deeper and deeper into the bag. Digging a search tunnel into the street with people going past. But the key always shows up. In a pocket (never in the said bag), in a shoe, on a desk in the library exited two hours prior, lying calmly and shining in the distance. Keys always stay - for me. I have lost sweaters, and books (on tram 13), and once or twice I was sure I had lost my dog.
I have locked keys inside of places they were supposed to open. Two weeks ago, on a road in Indonesia, I locked a scooter key in its boot. They were extracted - lots of force, strained fingers, hurt knuckles. I locked keys (many times) inside the house in Melbourne - texting my roommates who would be home, but we would usually leave the house open. Feet in shoes, still lots of trust.
But I have never lost a key.
If cutting a new key should cost no more than 10 dollars, yet the fee for losing one always exceeds 100, it should be concluded that it is the act of ownership that strikes up the price of said key.
Mum would always caution me and my little brother against evil men who would find our lost keys, make a copy and sneak into our house and steal our teddy bears, and toy cars and rearrange the house - bathroom in the living room, kitchen in the hall. These evil men would naturally know which key belongs to which house. That is simply the way evil men work, no one ever said they are stupid.
I am now in Vietnam and I have acquired another key. This one has laminated paper attached to it - dorm 5A. I keep it safely in the black bag I wear across my body. I have searched for it around 3 times today. Always there, camouflaged.
In times of travel, a key seems to be the only thing of value. I do not own the bed, I do not own the bike I drive on, but the key I do own and I do have to pay for it if lost. This theory definitely works on a bit of a stretch here - if I were to break a bike I would also have to pay for it - yet the key possesses something special in it. It reminds me that there's a corner, a nook, a mattress, a bed, or a shelf I do still care for. A key as an extension of my belongings, as an extension of my being.
Keyless but not quite.
I have around 1 more month in Vietnam. If I am to follow my plans that’s around 5 more keys. Then I take two flights back home, or one if I am lucky and there will be keys I left 11 months ago.
The infinite and unknown, future number of keys keeps me hopeful. And it could be temporary keys or keys I carry in my pockets for long months - cold and warm - but they will always safeguard something. A backpack, a rug. Or maybe a rug and a washing machine and a chair, and 34 of my T-shirts.