Banana Trees & Butterfly Gardens
(The house located in the bottom left corner)
An old Cuban man, drunk most days, spends his hours at the bar in Westlake. His car is a wreck, a testament to too many nights behind the wheel. His wife is a ghost, rarely seen. Their daughter, a drug dealer, has her clients parked out front, huddled in their cars, smoking and waiting for her at all hours.
The years pass and the parents die. The daughter, now worn and older, takes a job at a state-run vaccination clinic during the pandemic. She leaves the drug trade behind. She finds solace in growing plants, nurturing banana trees and butterfly gardens. She gives away what she grows, finds a boyfriend, and for the first time, the world feels a little less empty.
The Fierce Windstorm
(The house located in the bottom right corner)
A Vietnamese woman, rumored to have worked for the FBI, lived alone. A fierce windstorm came through and knocked a massive tree from her neighbor’s yard right onto her property, tearing a hole in her roof. The neighbor, poor and uninsured, had to sell the house and leave with her four kids. She couldn’t even sell the lumber; her boys had ruined it by throwing hatchets at it.
After the tree fell, the woman moved out as well, but she kept the house. She rented it to a group of young musicians who set up in the backyard, their folk music drifting out into the canyon, echoing in the quiet night.
Drift Out into the Open Air
(The dark grey house located in the center)
This house was built not long ago by a bunch of guys from Israel, Russia, and Canada. The Canadian guy stayed there for a while before they sold it. He made his escorts drag their wheeled bags up from the lower street, never lifting a finger himself.
The first guy who bought the place was a bachelor too. He wanted to turn an entire room into a shower. He set up a gas generator so loud it shook the walls. Eventually, he sold the house to a mother and her son, Astro. Astro liked to fly paper planes from the balcony, letting them drift out into the open air.