When I was growing up, this roof had bright orange tiles. Two old sisters and their little black Pomeranian mongrel lived under it. Through open windows you could hear an old hag downstairs eternally cursing at her grandson.
While out there in the city centre big demolitions carried whole neighbourhoods off, here in the north we seemed quite safe. Until one day, when excavators showed up and tore down all houses around the market hall at the end of our street. They went onwards erasing both sides of the boulevard.
In a couple of years, a curtain of prefab high-rise concrete slabs had replaced the little houses with their neat gardens. As they drew nearer, the concrete slabs scared me. I feared they’d make my whole world disappear. Our neighbourhood was going to be flattened and get replaced by a new botanical garden, on Ceausescu’s latest whim, rumour had it. In 1989, the excavators stopped at the end of our street.
The cursed grandson either fled to the US long ago – or is now in office in the government.