Wednesday, June 20, 2012

The rooms

She sits on the cold, uneven, pebbled floor looking up at the curved, winding, beautiful cliched staircase. Not able to get up the stairs she's searched all the bottom floor. Through the long, narrow hallways which seem more like strangely familiar passageways she finds so many doors. Each doorway holds magic. All different colors & tones & decorated in styles all their own. She used to take photographs of doors all around the world, & somewhere lost in an obscure mislabeled box the remaining ones are framed & unloved. Her search for an opening is exhausting, as she has to stop every 3-5 minutes to sit & rest. In the old days those passageways would have been scavenged in minutes-not hours. Each door has a unique doorknob...some ornate, some simple letting the door itself be the star, some a repurposed item like an old chalice. She keeps reaching for a camera that no longer is there, trying now to memorize the details in hopes of dreaming of them later for pain control. Trying so hard to create or grow a photographic memory, her brain gets foggy from the search, the turning of locked handles, & the endless sitting down & standing up. The final passageway brings her back to the side of the staircase, & she realizes there is one final door. She hears something inside, & after turning the handle & being met with continued resistance, she looks through a storybook keyhole. It is the only thing adorning this plain door-so unlike the others, yet the peeping keyhole makes up for the lack of character. She knocks, puts her ear to the surface, & looks through the keyhole. She can't make out much as it is getting darker, but through the room's window there's a bit of light & she sees a cat stretch, yawn, & go back to sleep after a hostile look in her noise filled existence. She gives up, goes back to the stairway landing, collapses gently on the tiny little rocks & wonders what to do next.

 

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