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The Door in the Wall
The wall is smooth, but poorly lit. Only a little smattering of light hits it from the rectangular table lamp, creating a patch of light narrower at the top than at the bottom. Loveseat, computer desk, and clutter block the way to the wall from the center of the room. But that doesn’t stop the Door.
Crystal light filters along a 6-foot segment of smooth, white-painted wall. In a faint line, the light curves over the mantle of the unformed Door before sliding back down the other side in a quick flare of fiery brightness. The Door is formed, little more than a standing line against the wall, centered between the entrance and the closet. A blaze of magic in the mundane. There is no knob, no handle, no visible means of opening it, but when approached, it sags open on invisible hinges. It’s impossible to tell if the door opens inwards or outwards, but it opens all the same.
It opens on a dark place. It opens on velvety blackness with a single pinprick of light at the far end. The darkness wraps around and permeates, filling with emptiness the space behind the Door. The light at the end of the Door’s space is little more than a glimmer, just a hint of something more. When the Door swings shut, the light glimmers, enlarging or moving closer it’s impossible to say for certain. Finally, the light reaches out. After the darkness of the Door’s internal emptiness, the light is impossibly bright, like cinders stabbing deep into the fabric of the brain.
There is movement in the light. Something is there. A cooling sensation follows the light’s burning brightness and there is a person standing there, in the light. Androgynous, the figure stands with its back to the Door and the light, pale brown hair hanging lank against narrow shoulders. Young and somewhat fragile-looking, the person pauses in what it was doing and turns slightly. In profile, it’s even harder to tell if the person is male or female, if there is gender at all. Just at that point of puberty when gender is so easy to mistake. But the voice is female. She speaks in an angry voice, slender face flushing with rage. She yells across the room but the words are nonsensical. Voice impacts like a fist and leaves angry, glowing welts across the face of the other girl in the room. She is older, her hair a more definite shade of yellow-blonde, her gender more obvious but the relationship to the younger girl is just as clear, a sister perhaps, or a cousin. She is silent while the younger girl shouts at her, rages with tiny fists clenched at her side. For a moment, neither speaks as they stare at one another.
When the older girl speaks, the single word she says can only be foul, a curse. It hovers in scalding orange and yellow in the air before wrapping itself around the younger girl, leaving deeper wounds than the longer tirade. Tears of rage and pain are bright in the younger girl’s eyes as she screams again, then turns and rushes from the room. The older girl’s expression shifts faintly in an almost satisfied, mirthless smile before she turns and leaves, too. The room is now empty and the light fades, moving backwards and shrinking until the Door’s darkness curls into satin coils. Once darkness is complete again, the Door opens to the rear and once again, I am sitting in my own room, at my own desk, staring helplessly at the wall where the Door had been, moments before.
RosieRuth · Tue Oct 24, 2006 @ 10:11pm · 2 Comments |
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