The Climbing

The Climbing

Grey stairs. Lucy is climbing. Walls on the first floor - yellow, lacquered and smooth. There are six doors in rounded hallway. Doubt increases in her. Where should she go? She only hears quiet whispering echo: ‘’Everything is simple…’’ She is pushing shadows in defiance, already tired. How much time has passed?

Hallway is slowly turning into dark grey. She is reaching the first door. By the moment she touches the door handle, the door disappears. She is on the way to the second door. Then first door is coming back to its place. Doors are disappearing and coming back to their place. Time flows more quickly now.

Hallway is all turning into the fog. Walls turn invisible. Pieces of paper are moving around Lucy’s feet. A bird is flying above her head. Her feathers are long and black. She flies slowly, getting closer to Lucy. When she touches her, the bird converts into small black book. Lucy is reading the book, rapidly turning pages and her eyes are spreading more and more. She is caught with the content from the book. The rays of yellow and blue are getting out of the pages, entering quickly into her eyes. The wind is coming from behind. At the page twenty-nine there is her image. The whispering is getting louder and fuzzy.

Suddenly she starts picking up all the pieces of paper from the floor. Hallway is already dimmed and dark. It is impossible to see through the fog. Lucy is taking more and more of these pieces of papers. Silent echo is whispering: ‘’Get the book. Get the book!’’

It is Saturday morning in the Northwest 2nd Ave in New York City. Lucy wakes up murmuring. She is all in sweat. What day is it? Sunlight beams are entering through the window, touching her front and disappearing on the old Persian carpet. Her first thought is about the debt that she had to pay to the Johnny today. Fear is rising in her body all the way from her feet. She might be killed, she knew that. Where should she go? It is impossible to hide from Johnny!

Then she started rewinding all the same doubts and events since she first moved to the house. Her articles remained unpopular. Her mother is still in coma. Since the divorce, she did not hear from her daughter. Since last week, Johnny has been calling her almost every day and threatening. Mister Parten is the only who has understanding for her, but he seems so old that he might die any day. Roads became so narrow. ‘’I must keep writing articles’’, she started to console herself. Then she started thinking over of possible solutions to pay Johnny.

Below the blanket there was an object pressing her right heel. She removed the blanket and saw small black notebook. Notebook cover was warm. When she opened it, there were wrinkly green hundred dollars bills in there. Besides them, there was only one page in the notebook.

After counting the money, she realized there were exactly $20 000 that she needs to pay to Johnny! After short moments of excitement, her sight goes back to small black notebook. On the top of the only page in the notebook, it was written in two lines: ‘’To take money / to open doors’’. There were no punctuation marks. Was it a statement? Was it a question?

The money in her hands was real more than ever. She could feel enormous relief knowing that she will be able to avoid Johnny for the rest of her life. She quickly dialed his number and told him to visit her the next day.

However, her thoughts start wandering back to the dream. When she remembered how she found the money, she remained silent and almost with not a single blink in her eyes. She kept touching money to assure herself that she is not imagining or dreaming. She is not. Money is there. It is real.

‘’This could be an inception of wonders or of a big misfortune’’, the taught flew through her mind. Then her thoughts start racing and she was not able to catch even a single of them.

The small black notebook was laying by her legs all silent and insensitive, as any other object. Lucy’s checks were covered with tears, which were falling over the cover page of the book, over the green money notes. These tears were telling her what she could not understand rationally.

‘’To take money / to open doors’’, it was written in her mind.

Dark sky and couple pale stars there. Another day is ending. Tomorrow the Sun rises again. Tomorrow sky is getting dark again. Tomorrow.