-Jer
The old man stood in front of the giant ebony door and
sighed. He had stood there day in and
day out for years, but on this day everything seemed to crash down on him. He
felt irritated and uneasy. It just wasn’t
his day and he wished they had called and told him to stay home. He looked at the door. He could vaguely see his reflection through
it. His black suit made him look even older
than the wrinkles on his head. He never
did understand why he decided to wear a suit every day. He supposed when he started he felt he had a
purpose. Now, it just made him stand out
from the others who wore t-shirts and flip-flops. That’s probably why they never assigned
anyone else to work with him, he often thought.
He’s always worked alone. He
looked away from his reflection, noticing after all of these years that his
door never had a door knob. It had a
simple silver handle that he used to pull the door shut and a lock placed
inside of the door that kept the door from swinging back open. He always had to
make sure the door was locked before he could leave. He had never questioned this, even on this
day.
He looked up and down the hall. Several doors, just like his, ran along both sides,
leading up and down until they ended under a sign that said “exit”. There were no decorations or gaudy designs ornating
the walls, just doors, with the name of each department written in on them in
metallic silver-blue lettering. Every
door but his, which he was convinced was done on purpose, as if someone was
playing some cruel joke on the one department where things went when they were
supposed to be forgotten but never actually were.
His shaky hand reached into his pocket and pulled out an
old-fashioned skeleton key. When he
started his job many years previous, he was told to hold onto this key for dear
life. He was told that it would become
his most sacred possession. He was still
waiting for those feelings to happen. He
wished most days to lose it so he’d have a reason to not come into work. He wished someone would steal it so he could
be rid of it. He didn’t care for the
key. He looked at it, his feeble hand
struggling to bare the weight of such a simple thing. He turned it in his fingers, hesitated,
turned it again, and put it into the lock.
As the door unlocked, it cracked open without a sound. To his knowledge the hinges had never been
greased or maintained. It should stick
closed or be in some sort of disrepair, but day after day, it silently slid
open, waiting for him to enter. He stood
there, thinking the same thing he often thought these days, “do I really have
to go in”. Sighing, he stepped into the
darkness, making sure to grab the key and put it in his pocket.
The first thing he did was lock the door. He then felt the outside of his pocket to
make sure that his key was in there, he wasn’t allowed to let anyone into his
room. Grumbly, he thought of how
different he must be to everyone else.
Next to the door was a small, wooden table. It was painted black, which he thought fit
the room perfectly. He placed his few
belongings on the table and sat down in simple wooden arm chair. He sat in complete darkness, listening to
himself breathing, trying not to think about the task at hand. As he sat in the blackness he’d sometimes
close his eyes and listen. If he
strained his ears hard enough he could faintly hear into the room next door and
pretend that he was with them. He could
hear them laughing as something funny would happen or gasp in anticipation as
something surprising occurred. He could
even hear them cry together, when something terrible was going on. They had each other, and when he sat there in
the darkness, he could feel as though he was a part of them. But, then his undertaking would beckon and he’d
be forced to return to the blackness.
2 comments:
Whatttttt you left me hanging. I like it
Yup...what's next...
Post a Comment