“There was no warning before I was shut in the living room, still here, in the living room, which has now become a Live in room. Who knows when I will leave.

I am surrounded by items which now replace the company that once was people.

The walls that surround me have become mirrors. I look with suspicion and fear at the person I see there. In the end, who is that? Is that me?

Without being given a choice, I am pushed in front of a faint reflection of someone I have unknowingly become, so I introduce myself.

How are you? Are you from around here? Your face looks familiar, but I am not sure if I know you.

As soon we begin to talk we’ve already made friends, sharing stories and telling secrets.

By now the two of us are sitting in the room chatting back and forth of the memories we’ve shared and of the things we’ve seen.

I revisit forgotten places inside me and make space to welcome those who will come with good intentions.

I open the windows and shake the dusty rugs and then get comfortable. In the end, it doesn’t seem that bad, what luck!

The smells of fresh bread and coffee fill the room, I breath deep in an attempt to savour every very last smell.

Nostalgia bangs on the door and bursts in without permission. She came in a rush with her baggage, is she here to stay?

She carries the voices of people in the street, the sensation of a tight hug and the feeling of dancing all night without keeping track of time.

How rude, inviting herself in like that! Oh well, thank you for coming.

The days don’t stop but I can’t help feeling that I’ve stopped in time. I do nothing but think about being stuck in the emptiness of this room, my own emptiness.

I stop to think and when I think, I think only of this numbness, this absence of sense and the yearning for this to stop.

I top up my glass but only with the souls of the people I no longer see.

Dependant only on virtual conversations to remember and prolong their presence.

Their voices nourish my soul but I can not identify them, are they real?

I water the plants, my dreams and my plans, I water my desire of turning back time but I am too late as time keeps passing.

I water myself a thousand times trying not dry out but grow strong roots to sustain me during the incoming storm.

Here I sit living with myself as those things, which now, just like people, are no longer here. Just me and the reflexion I got to know too well.

Just the two of us existing, in this live in room.”

Words | Model: Beatriz Pedrosa, @beatrizcpedrosa / Photography by Ana Monteiro, @anamonteiroph / Set Assistant: Patrícia Balsas, @balsaspatricia