A door that flung open

In this memory, I am five years old. I’m coming back from our weekly group lesson at a local YAMAHA music school with my two best friends, our mothers and little siblings. Today, my mother is the driver, leading the crowd of nine people inside a five-seater. On the way, the adults decide to meet up for a teatime at one of my friends’ place.

We come back to the community of tiny half-dilapidated apartments, and my mother parks the car in a parking spot near the community park. As the car comes to a halt, I wonder why my mother has chosen this strange spot. We have never parked here before, and moreover, the ground is tilted.

I am sitting in the backseat next to a door, and I feel impatient when nobody says that we are good to go now. I cannot wait to play with my friends!

“Are we good now?” I ask. But the adults are discussing something and I don’t hear any answer. I decide to open the door. “Let’s go!”

The moment I pull the handle of the door, before I can stop it, the door flings open and I almost fall out. I am impressed by how tilted we are, staring at the ground in front of me. Suddenly, the car moves and my mother’s angry voice rings from the driving seat.

“Sweetie! Close the door, NOW!” She is very upset for a reason I don’t quite understand. “It’s DANGEROUS what you’re doing!”

I close the door, trying to keep myself straight inside the tilted car.

“But aren’t we good to go now?”

“No, NOT YET!” She replies as she turns the wheel. “We are not parking here!”

The car finally moves out of the tilted parking spot and my mother’s voice returns to her normal tone. Everybody is busy talking about something else. But I’m still thinking about that moment when the door flung open and I almost fell out. The thrill was as if we were parked on a clifftop.