President's Room

Author's name: Ricardo Romero

There is no basement. All the houses in the neighborhood have no basements. They have been prohibited since my grandparents' time. They say that terrible things happened in basements, so it was decided that no more should be built. As for the old houses, from the era before the prohibition, their basements have been sealed. Although they are large houses, they are cheap and easy to buy. People don't like to live in these houses now. It's understandable. Who would want to live above a room that never sees the light of day? Long before basements were prohibited, president's rooms began to be built. They are in all the houses; or at least all the houses like ours. They are not in the buildings located in the city center. These buildings lose the privileges of the president's room because it is not in them. I don't know very well what these privileges are. I don't know if my parents know about them, but no one questions their existence. Every house in our neighborhood has a president's room. Yet the president has never come to visit us. It's not that we wait for him; in fact, we often forget that this room is here. We forget, most of the time.