A Flat with a View
Across the road from our apartment building there is a plot of land that had six villas. When I moved back to Dubai five years ago, there was construction on that plot of land. Over the course of six months, five of the six villas were demolished. The area was fenced off except for that one house that remained standing. There were trucks, a crane and builders there for a while, but eventually they left. The barren plot, but for the one villa, looked particularly out of place on the long stretch of road.
I could see it all from my bedroom window, on the tenth floor of our apartment building wondering when they would tear down that last house. There were rumours from some of the shopkeepers downstairs that the owner refused to sell to the developer. This might be a weird subject to occupy someone’s mind but I became slightly obsessed with the view of that one lone villa. It was like an unsolved problem, facing me every day, outside my window.
My writing desk is situated by the window where, often on the outside ledge, a number of pigeons sit and coo at one another. Beyond them, across the road are plots of land like blocks with villas of varying sizes and styles. Between the villas, appearing in random groups were palm trees, purple bushes of bougainvillea flowers and other ambiguous trees varying in colour from lime to rusty green. Past them is a winding shoreline. I’m not sure if this shoreline is artificially made or natural but it stretches out in a type of loop that is hard to look away from. The water that laps against the shoreline, covered by a sprinkling of trees and few more villas, is bluer than blue, blue. I love to stare at it until my vision gets hazy, trying to pinpoint exactly where the water ends and the sky begins. Cheesy as it sounds, it’s almost like meditation, to stare out at this view. Especially if I’m writing, reading or pondering what to order from Deliveroo. But when I see the villa standing alone on the plot of land right in front of me, my thoughts are distracted. The owner still hasn’t sold it?
Eventually I got used to the view of the house that looked, at sunset, particularly haunted. The house stayed standing there halting all construction for over four years. Then one Friday morning at dawn, I noticed that the villa was gone. The trucks were back, the builders were yelling and the foundation for some structure was being laid down.
I’m not sure what finally convinced the owner to sell. But me and the pigeons on my window ledge are still staring at the view, hoping that it won’t be blocked once the builders and trucks are gone again.