Downsizing the Soul (With Sea Views)

Date: 1/1/2026

I’m moving house. This is not exciting. This is not aspirational. This is not “new beginnings.” This is a decision I was talked into — then slowly convinced myself was a good idea — before realising, too late, it would unravel me. The new house is a modest terrace a few streets over. That’s how it’s described. Modest. A word that always sounds like it’s apologising before you’ve even complained. It’s smaller than our current house. No — stop lying. It’s significantly smaller. It’s the sort of smaller that suggests I’ve done something wrong in a previous life and this is the architectural consequence. I stand at the front door for a moment before going in, as though the house might sense hesitation and offer reassurance. It doesn’t. I step inside and immediately feel like I’ve intruded on something that was enjoying the silence. The hallway is narrow. Not cosy — narrow. My shoulders instinctively angle inwards, as if foreshadowing what's to come. The air is stale, the light anaemic, like the house has been in mourning since the last occupant left. The walls are beige. Not warm beige. Not soft beige. Defensive beige. The colour of something longing to be unseen. I let out a sigh — the kind that empties your lungs and your optimism at the same time. “Well,” I think. “This is it now.” The house is completely empty, yet somehow already full — of silence, dust motes, and a faint, weary sigh of the universe. I try to imagine my furniture here, but it refuses. The sofa would dominate the space and feel bad about it. The dining table would throw a tantrum. The bookcases would look around and think, Absolutely not. Nothing belongs here. Including me. I move through the rooms, each one smaller than the last, like the house is slowly shrinking into itself. The ceilings press down. Even the windows refuse to let much light in. The garden doesn’t help matters. A stoned, joyless patio the size of a folded apology. Grey slabs laid out with all the warmth of a headstone. Not enough room to swing a cat — again, not that I would — but Monkey would despise it. Monkey requires grass, chaos, somewhere to fling himself dramatically. At least a few patches to do his Monkey Business. I pace across the stones, crunching underfoot, when shouting erupts from next door. I tell myself not to look. Curiosity, however, is a stubborn bugger. Over the fence, my neighbour is watering his plants in the nude. Not accidentally nude. Not “popped out for a second” nude. Not European beach nude. Fully, confidently, stark bollock naked. His body is pale and lanky. His hose — the real one — hangs freely, swaying slightly, like it’s part of the conversation. “Howdy, neighbour!” he booms, American accent thick enough to butter. “Hi,” I say, fixing my gaze somewhere above his left ear, which feels reasonably safe. Behind him, his family are mid-meltdown over burger buns. Two super-sized adults tearing into a plastic bag like it contains the last crumbs on Earth. The bag splits. Buns scatter across the dirt. A tragedy in sesame. “Look what you’ve done, you wanker!” “Ain’t my fault you’re a greedy lardass!” A moment of silence. Then louder shouting. I back away slowly, uneased, only to discover something unexpected at the far end of my garden. A beach. A small, stony cove, tucked away like a secret the house forgot to mention. The sea stretches out, pale and glinting. Seagulls squawk overhead, crying their sharp, ridiculous cries. For a moment — a dangerous moment — my chest softens. I picture picnic lunches. The boys laughing. A wicker basket crammed with crisps, warm cans of something fizzy. The ordinary, fragile magic of a day that doesn’t go wrong. The image wraps around me, warm and tight, and I almost believe it. Almost. Then the sound of engines. Mopeds tear in, loud and snarling. A boombox erupts with music that seems furious at the concept of peace. The youths spread out, shouting, swearing, flinging themselves into the space with the entitlement of people who’ve never been told no — and wouldn’t listen if they were. The air sharpens. I feel it in my shoulders — the instinctive hunch of someone already calculating an escape route. I walk towards the water, trying to put distance between myself and them — but the sea has changed too. Up close, it’s wrong. Brown. Clouded. Still. No waves. No pull. Just a flat, unmoving surface, like something pretending to be water. Then — Bang. I turn. Bang. Bang. They’re shooting the seagulls. The sound rips through me. Each shot lands somewhere deep and sour. Birds fall from the sky, hitting the water with dull, final thuds. Pale feathered corpses flecked with blood, bobbing to the surface like white flags soaked in red. The youths howl with laughter. I feel rage rise — sharp, blistering, absurdly large. I want to throw stones at their heads. I want to scream. I want the world to feel how wrong this is. But rage is heavy, and I’ve been travelling light for a while now. So I turn back. Towards the house. The small one. The soulless one. The place I am apparently expected to be grateful for. At the gate, the naked neighbour stands waiting, hands on hips, hosepipe swaying in the breeze. “Come on, boys!” he calls. “Teatime!” The youths whoop and race towards him. Of course they do. I go inside and close the door. The silence locks in. The walls inch closer, quietly stealing space. The ceiling presses down, shrinking me. The air feels thinner, like breathing with punctured lungs. I reach for the light switch. There isn’t one. And in the dark, it finally lands — not like a revelation, but like a quiet administrative note filed too late to contest. The house isn’t smaller than the last one. I am.