Red Door

There was only one rule: “don’t open the door.”

The thing is, it is such a familiar door. It is the little red door that makes her home so charming.

It’s the door people use as a signpost, “my house is just two down from the house with the red door,” they might say.

When they renovated the door was hotly debated.

Colour schemes aside, there was no way it would be painted blue to match the awnings or the agapanthus. Not on her watch.

Her mother still hates it and never forgets to tell her so. She hears the same complaint every time mum visits, and she stares past her in silent consternation while her husband raises his eyebrows and makes a face behind her back.

She paces back and forth stealing glances at the door. She imagines herself Eve in the garden. That shiny delicious apple calling from the tree, pick me, pick me..oh…open me, open me.

But the instructions were clear…even if no rationale had been forthcoming.

She walks away.

There is a deep fog in the street distorting the landscape and creating husks and hollows in the once familiar neighborhood.

The further she walks the more lost she feels – a kind of tumbleweed desolation settling in her soul.

In a panic she wonders if she has left the gas on at home. Wasn’t she supposed to pick the children up from school hours ago? Has she forgotten someone’s birthday?

The responsibilities bubble inside her gut, twisting around like a sickness and she knows she must find the red door. She must open it and to hell with the consequences.

She races to the path. The red door rises up before her, familiar, comforting.

She pushes it open and crosses the threshold – into the abyss.