Look For the Red Door

The wheels stop turning and the dust settles. At first there is panic. Where am I? Is this where I’m supposed to get off? Nothing looks familiar, and I’m the last person on the bus. The driver settles deeper into his chair and moves his toothpick to the other side of his mouth. He doesn’t look at me, but focuses vaguely on something up ahead. The front door snaps open and I gather my bags. My exit is clumsy and my steps are heavy.

As I touch down on this new unsettled ground, I feel something wet slipping around my ankle. It’s cold and grainy and it doesn’t belong. I watch as a strange grey liquid hardens around the empty spaces of my hiking boots. Cement. “How did that get here?” I wonder idly. The cement makes walking difficult, but not impossible. My confusion turns quickly to determination as I seek out the spot I am supposed to find.

I pull out a wrinkled paper from my right pants pocket. The letters are almost illegible, scrawled in a handwriting that is not my own. The paper sticks together from the sweat and humidity of my new environment. Up hill. Turn right at church. Walk 6 minutes until you see a yellow house. Knock on the red door. Ph: +23 945 112 6645.

The walk is longer than I expect it to be, but I eventually arrive at the yellow house. There are three doors in my line of vision. The first is grey and crumbly, sharing a distinct likeness to the material in my shoes. I walk closer to examine the cracks, to feel the rough edge of an old habit. Suddenly,  I feel a looseness in my boots. Small sharp rocks are poking through my socks, but there is space to move my foot. The cement has cracked. I untie my shoes and pour out the remaining gravel bits, dust off my socks, and return my feet to their trusted guardians.

The second door is white and sterile. It reminds me of a horror film wrought with disturbing medical experiments, like making a new body out of old skin. I shiver and try to pass, but before I can reach the third door a voice calls out. “You’re going to the wrong door!” I feel the hair on my arms stand up and take guard as an old man’s voice hisses again, “Don’t go to far. You know you can’t come back if you go too far!”

I can’t see him, but I can feel him. He doesn’t feel right. I turn towards the direction of the place I am supposed to go and smell bread baking. The scent is familiar, delicious and alluring. I follow my nose a few more steps until I reach the red door. I stop to look at a simple design carved into the border. Light curves decorate the frame and are dusted with gold sparkles that shimmer just slightly in the afternoon sun. It’s beautiful, and suddenly I feel like I have been here before. Did I dream this place?

I wrap my hand around the wooden knob and turn slowly until I hear a click. In an instant, all the doors vanish into the same cloud of dust made by the bus. When the dust settles I realize I have returned to my apartment; everything is just as it was, but everything is different.  I recognize the bread smell from the bakery next door, and the sun beams through my open windows feel like a warm embrace from an old friend. My bed is made and my neighbors are listening to music. I take off my boots, and a tiny piece of gravel rolls out reminding me of my voyage. I smile.

I am home. That feels right.



Red Door image found at www.thehomeguru.com

Writer's Block

My writing has been stagnant lately; hard and immovable like dried BBQ sauce on a kitchen countertop. Perhaps it was the vacation I just enjoyed on the Caribbean Coast. Perhaps it's the stress of money troubles (so why was I on vacation?...) or the learning process of my new job. Or perhaps it's just me. My brain sticks to the side of my head like that dried BBQ sauce.

Justin, my best friend and co-protagonist in my article "A Long Goodbye", is also having trouble as of late. Perhaps he too has been enjoying too much sun. Perhaps he's overwhelmed with the duties of a seemingly meaningless temp job in the Hollywood Hills. Maybe the plastic people are suffocating his true creative soul. Maybe he's just drained. 

When one has writer's block the only solution is to keep writing, no matter how dry and sticky one's mind has become. We started writing five sentences twice a week based on a topic of the partner's choice. I've decided to share our meaningless jumbles as a way to distract from the fact that I've got nothing else.

These stories are very real and very much made up. For extra fun, I will not tell you the author of each paragraph. Read on, reader.

POWDER
I'd forgotten I'd put powder in my shoes until I saw the traces of my bare feet on the wooden paneling. I knelt and looked at the blank space between my toes and the sole, the curve to the heel, there on the floor. Just ahead, another foot, and then another - pale, vague reminders that I'd already been through here. Unmoving, I followed one print to the next, across the room, through the balconied daylight, until they disappeared down the shadowed middle hall.

FEAR
I wake promptly at 6:28am, just before my alarm is set to desecrate the early morning silence. My lids flutter to cloudy alertness and I inhale; the breath stretches vertically from my chest to my back. There is no heaviness of commitment, no panic of promise. The fear that once controlled me has been left in the dry, unyeilding soil of The States. There is just me now.

WEATHER
They say people who live here get tired of the sun, grow weary from the brightness, ask for clouds, pray for rain. I haven't found myself doing any of that - but the HEAT; my god, the heat. "At least it's not humid," my mom says, but when it's 105 degrees for a week straight humidity's about as consequential as a bible at a gay bar. I want the sun, but can leave the heat; I may have backed myself into a corner.

BOWL
He insists on ordering our drinks in Spanish but butchers each word, the sounds splattering like a dirty chop job, despite his Colombian background. He thinks louder is better and tries to hold my hand. My cheeks flush with anger and embarrassment as he stares expectantly, smiling proudly. I avert his gaze and instead turn my focus to the stale popcorn in the center of the table. "Anywhere is better than here with him," I think as I submerge my hand into the bowl of cardboard corn.

LOCK
I left him, unslaked and naked, and walked to the door. I threw the top dead bolt back, made for the next one. "...that one's not locked," he said from the bed, and I glanced at him, hardly able to. I opened the door, took four steps outside, and lifted my face to the Yucca Valley sun - hot and dry at 9am; it alone in the sky, me alone in the hotel parking lot - and breathed, and breathed.

Go It Alone

A brave new world presents itself every day. I rise with the sun. The light shines brightly through my new blue blinds and my eyelids flutter to consciousness. My roommate, The Basil Plant, wakes beside me and we both stretch towards the morning glow.

I make my bed (a new habit) and stumble into the kitchen where I cut fresh fruits and vegetables that I use for my breakfast. I slowly open the cabinet where my coffee lives. I am ashamed that it is instant, but have no appliance with which to otherwise make a fresh cup. Two small spoonfuls and a frying pan of boiling water give me the boost I need to start the day.

I gently fry plantains, onions, cilantro and tomatoes in a different pan. Once the plants are malleable, I add one brown-shelled egg to the mix and wait for it to change from clear to white. I scoop the fresh food from the pan to the plate being careful not to break the jiggly yoke.

My masterpiece is complete and ready to be consumed until there is nothing left but the sheen of cooking oil glistening in the morning light. I treasure each delectable morsel. The salt sticks to the roof of my mouth on the way down to my stomach where it is churned into nourishment and released. I reach a comfortable level of satisfaction before 9am.

The shower sputters as steam rises in the small glass cave. Water leaks from the corner, but my new white towel catches any droplets that try to claim space on the grey tile. I keep to my routine; shampoo first, rinse, wash the body, rinse again, condition, shave, and a final rinse. My hair dries with the chill of morning air as I have yet to purchase a hair dryer.

Jewel sings to me as I open my door.

"I break the yokes and make a smiley face

I kinda like it in my brand new place

Wipe the spots up off the mirror

Don't leave the keys in the door

I never put wet towels on the floor anymore cuz

Dreams last for so long..."