The Door
by Kent Bruyneel

"I wanted to talk to you about doors, I said," she said. Stopping to say it. Standing in the way.

"I like them is what I said," she said—me staring at her. "A totally human creation. Well, mostly. And so full of possibility and absent wonder too."

I was thinking how funny it was she should be into things like that-and on so many weird levels, with her hair in that way.

Her father made cabinets. "My father was a cabinetmaker, I told you that too, already?" She said.

Now sitting staring like at the hallway, but at the doorway if you asked, "They say you can't see a doorway, you know? But you can with the right kind of eyes. Yeah, see almost anything with those eyes."

Eyes like hers, no doubt. Sighing and standing; pulling herself up gradually, "Eyes Just Like Mine."

"I love that in the earthquake you're supposed to head for the doorway. And I hate Vancouver. Because Vancouver never has any earthquakes and so I just stand there and pretend. And think how I'd always slam the door behind me before I ran."

She took my hand and we made left back into the front hall; she adjusted my collar—me just there standing now and dumb. Waiting. "They're French I said, that too. You know?"

I was tired and more than fascinated. Thought about how much more she could say. "They're are all kinds of doors, I said, too" she said. "So many."

I moved closer to her leaned in to remember everything.

"All different colours and shapes and momentums. But those ones we just left, they're French with clean windows." Smiling now, and closing her eyes.

"Nobody can avoid them, is what I didn't say" she said.

Me dreaming now; almost falling right into her.

Kent Bruyneel has pinched intellectual properties.