Red Door

A Story by stephanee

Red Door

She was lying on the couch when it struck her . . . staring at the terra cotta pots, which were mottled, their bottoms turning dark, standing out against salmon-shaded soapstone towers and bowls that served as her only concession to frivolous decoration. The color combinations made her think of Mexico—a casita in Chuburna done up in burnt orange and lemon yellow. Plus, Mexico always made her think of doors.

The plants were wilting again. They did this every few days at varying intervals . . . first one anthurium, then another. Their leaves sank down, staggered heads bowing to the slats in the rusting metal stand.

But this is not what struck her—neither the Mexican shadings of unconventional pots and knickknacks, nor the silent message of need sent by the drooping foliage.

What struck her was the light—that moment, right before it begins to fade: sunset simmering golden liquid in summer. It striped her arms; it hinted at inner radiance. It heated her. She pulled away, and moved toward it. She twisted beneath it. A sigh slipped between her lips; the sound floated, vibrations transmitted in air.

That the sigh would have floated seemed incongruous. The feeling that birthed it was so heavy, by all rights it should have dropped, straight away, denting the floorboards.

Instead, the oscillating fan blew the waves down the hall.

(She was acutely aware of her status as the only witness to this imagined event.)

***

For a moment, she wondered why she was there. She could see the question written on the face staring back at her in the mirror, her own reflection hung on the wall in the dressing room. The fitting area housed a corridor filled with bright red doors, matte finish, with silver knobs that seemed enormous in her tiny hand. On the outside of the door, halfway down, hung a dry erase board. The dressing room assistant, a clearly apathetic woman of sizeable circumference, insisted upon writing her name on the board, as if the identity of the person occupying the narrow stall were critical information. As if a relationship could be formed from this informality—she and the woman who noted that she would be glad to procure another size, or style, or color should the need arise. The woman's voice did not reflect joy at the notion; her hand movements, while scribbling letters on the board, while unlocking the door, while hanging the clothes on a metal rail, suggested only a long-standing distaste for these tasks.

She did not call on the woman to fetch replacements. Instead, she dressed in silence, creating two piles—the one for rejections becoming the larger of the two. Eighty percent of what she tried on looked like it belonged on someone else—someone less innocent. Someone with friends, and a cell phone full of ringtones that brought to mind triple axle hummer limousines with neon track lighting.

The striped, half-sleeve t-shirt and cargo shorts were for someone more settled—someone with a mortgage, and a picket fence lined with rose bushes paced by a retriever who would match the golden stripe circling just beneath a middle-aged bust.

She pulled her own shirt back over her head, then paused. For an instant, in that split second of darkness as the fabric shielded her eyes, she had remembered another time, another place. The thin black cotton had been a conduit for ghosts.

In another life, she had been trapped by the feeling of panic, which always seemed to rest beneath her brow. It was a beast in a small rectangle, set on its end. It paced its own stall, ungracious—yielding only in unconsciousness. When released, it tore the fabric of safety, bursting forward until her world was only a single breath drawn inward. The panic would swell, spilling over as an ominous tide that surged until she was drowning, light coalescing to a vanishing point. Her heart was broken, and she feared the worst. It would race, like this, hooves thrusting against her breastbone, until she collapsed.

In the present, still confined by four narrow walls, she felt the need to escape. But from what?

There was only her.

***

It had first occurred to her when she was twelve. There had been no panic then, in the notion. She had been stronger for it. Something encased her; she was cocooned. Safe. She could walk down the littered streets of this enormous city—creeping in and out of the shadows cast by towering buildings, gated markets, trees, which were circled by metal bars—and no one could touch her.

God was

the sound of her footsteps. The brush of fabric. The high and low tones of traffic whooshing past in the distance. She could step outside, into the sea of life, and contemplate the components of bliss. Perfection would appear before her as the horizon appears to a sailboat: unreachable, but a constant, soothing point of reference.

People spoke, but the words failed to reach her. She could call out, in her child-like voice, but the sound would be sucked away.

Lost. (Sheltered.)

Each moment was empty. Clean. There were no echoes. In an instant, the sea could become a desert, a textured canvas, an unrelenting reminder of impermanence.

***

So there was that moment again. The sun sinking. The energy she'd had earlier, draining out of her, as if the last of the sun's rays were stealing it away, carrying it off into twilight. She'd had plans—music at the café, or downtown, beneath the green awning on Market Street. Larger plans, fortune and acclaim—a steady stream of congratulations on her brilliance, the obvious vital nature of her opinions and their critical contribution to society. The beauty of blossoming creativity, the warmth she radiated, the inner calm illuminating her bones until she glowed and lit the darkness. These things rolled together; they flattened out; they turned light as feathers and blew away, until finally, there was only an acute awareness of the moment:

her eyes sinking down the stems of the plants; her muscles tensing, relaxing; she was pulsing, shifting, aching. Her fingertips brushed her skin; there was longing there, her own thirst bowing her head—the evidence of inestimable desire. She could read it like Braille:

Things might stay like this.

The subtext was sadness.

***

But it was not going to stay. Nothing stayed. Already, change was surging, a violent oscillation. The colors were shifting. The sun sank below the treetops and gray-shingled roofs; it slid down the umber fabric of her pillows, over the curves of the couch, down to the floor, where it dwindled into nothing. This act of transformation, the movement from light to dark, would force her to stand. She would fill a pitcher with water. In only three hours, the anthuriums and pothos would lift their leaves, become a deeper green. They would demonstrate resilience; they would reveal the simple pleasures of being upright. They would take what space they needed, unfurling, uplifting, widening the Y of their stems like arms embracing heaven.

In response, she would turn on lights to banish the darkness. Music would supplant silence.

***

In truth, she could have been that woman—the one with the ringtones, or the golden striped t-shirt and cargo shorts; the one with a house, and a dog, and laughter ringing out into the hallways over the sound of running dishwater. The choice was always there—from this corridor filled with bright red doors, a universe: emptiness, or infinite space for creation.

The knowledge released her. Emergent. Safe.

God was

the spreading leaves of the bamboo, the failing light, the thirst that humbled her, her voice petitioning—

an unseen force.

Nothing was lost.

She could put her hand out, and there would always be something, somewhere, taking shape from the ashes.

© 2008 stephanee

Author's Note

This almost resembles a journal entry...not intended to be an actual story...a little slice-of-life perhaps. Comments are welcome. I'm not (just) here for a love-fest!