“I want you all to hand in an essay about the word home and the meaning you attached to it. Submission is tomorrow.”

You sigh at the memory of your professor’s demand.

Tsk.

As if your workload isn’t heavy enough. You aren’t even an English student, so you really don’t get the topic’s connection to your program.

You’re stumped on how to start the essay. Between organ systems and the word home, the latter should be easier to define. A four letter, one syllable word. Easy on the mouth. It should be easy to search for a generic meaning and just call it a day.

Just a gen ed class, your mind unhelpfully supplies.

Like you’re a just normal student who can afford to not care about every class, and not someone who chases GWAs with the weight of ten ton books on their back.

Sighing, you shift your knapsack and look across the packed train. These people all must have homes to return to.

You wonder then, what would they think about that essay. The things they would write. Would home be somewhere where your shoulders relax once you’ve crossed the threshold, or will another crease appear on your forehead at the sight of it?

The train stops.

You figure you don’t really have the time to think about others. You have deadlines and your own meaning to find. Dragging your body out the station, the night breeze greets you. You take out your phone to finally start on that essay. What does the word home mean? You hit search. Multiple definitions pop up.

Technically, a home is where someone lives. Your neighborhood is a mosaic of different homes; big, simple, small, colorful. Your professor probably isn’t looking for anything literal, if the emphasis on your own meaning is anything to go by. He was probably talking about the things within, the things you see once you peer through their window. Identical smiles, shared food, laughter and chatter surrounding a round table. Or maybe it can also be found outside, in the couples sitting on the curb and peering at the moon.

There is a more sentimental definition of home, the search engine says. It can manifest as a feeling, safety. Vulnerability. Belonging. Or something. You don’t really know, you don’t really get any of those meanings.

You shiver, and you don’t whether it’s because of the cold or the absurdity of it all.

Finally, you arrive at a house on the corner of a street. You slot a key and open the door. You are met with a face that mirrors yours, yet alien. Something about the frown on her lips.

You ask your sister if she’s already done with the rice.

Silence answers you.

You trudge to the kitchen, to see an empty rice cooker. Frustration nipping at your heels, you set down your stuff and start on cooking the rice.

A screech interrupts the bleak silence. You look up and see identical features graced by age. This time, a scowl is present on her face.

Ah, here we go again.

Your mom really loves nitpicking your past, future, and current mistakes. Like, the raw grains in the rice cooker right now. She yells, something about incompetence and why are you still in your uniform. You really don’t know, by now you’re a pro at tuning her out. All of her insults are always directed at you anyway.

“I never wanted a daughter,” she bellows.

Hah. Useless now. You almost want to laugh at her face. She was the one who wanted a doctor and not a daughter. You’ve made yourself to be the former, as per her request. Guess it’s your fault for following it.

You robotically finish whatever chore you were doing. Picking up your bag, you rush to your room upstairs. You meet eyes with a man in the hallway, who is more content to be a bystander rather than a father.

You snicker at the melodrama of it all. A gnawing feeling seeps into your chest. Which means it’s time to bury yourself in schoolwork until today bleeds into tomorrow.

Finishing up the last of your requirements, you get to the home essay. You start devising themes and outlines. None never really give a name to the conflicting and overwhelming emotions welling up in your chest. Is this what home is supposed to feel like? Suffocating instead of sheltering? You look around your room. It is full of certificates, yet never photos. Your gaze lands at yourself in the mirror; you see your mom, dad, and sister all at the same time. You don’t really look like them.

This is no home at all.