The Now

The Now

There were no instructions.  

There never were at such times, in such... places.  Mary knew that, and she didn’t know anything.  Well, she knew some things.

No, she didn’t.

Well, she knew enough to turn a knob and walk through a door.

Well, no, she didn’t.

“I know how to turn a knob,” said Mary, to no one in particular.

It would have been impossible to particularize.  There was no one else in the room.

Maybe there would be someone waiting on the other side of the door.  Either of the doors.

Neither was locked.  Mary definitely remembered locks.  Before, before, there had been doors that were locked.  How had she gotten through them, those, the other ones?  They must have un...locked?  Neither of these appeared to be locked.  

Was she on an aeroplane? An air plane?  A plane of air?

No, it was plain that she was not.

Mary giggled nervously.

She said... snark.

“Snark, snark, snark.”

Mary was wasting time.

Eyeing the door on the left aslant she sidled towards it.  The doors were exactly the same.

They were not the same.

One was on the left and one was on the right.

Turning until she could see only the left, with her left eye- that seemed fair- she pranced towards it with half steps.

“Prancy, prancy, prancy,” Mary whispered, encircling the knob with her left hand.  

It was so cold!

It was not cold at all.  Mary frowned.  She had wanted it to be cold.  

If one knob were cold and one hot, that would have been a difference.  

The knob felt like a taste, like blood in her mouth, blood, and sand, and stringy, blubbering spit.

Quickly, Mary spun, grasping the other handle; right hand, right hip, right questing eye, alive with… blood.

Blood in her mouth.  Salty tang.  

Her molars tingling.

And.

Quickly releasing the right hand knob she stood away, straight and tall.

The knobs would turn; she was sure of that.  They had a, ‘turney,’ feel to them, even though set right into the middle of the door.  A door.  Their doors.  The room was very square, and smooth.  The doors hinges were on Mary’s side of things, so she couldn’t peek.  At least they were opposing, the hinges, on the far side of each door, so that if she had been only a foot or so taller, Mary could have opened both at the same time...

What was the reason?  Why were there doors, in a room?  

If only, she could remember… anything.  If only, there were instructions.  Mary knew that doors like these never had instructions.  She did not know how she knew, but knew, that she knew, that no one had ever, ever ever, had instructions.  Not real ones.

Placing her lips right up to the crack of the… right hand door?  Because, why not the right?  Mary stilled her heart, feeling for a breath of air, a vacuum, the heat or coolness she was sure must, might, be there.  Blood coursed through her ears.  She was as dry as a stick, a bone, the dust of a tomb.  She was a sack of meat, and blood, and squishy bits.  How bizarre that her fingers should understand her, all the bits meshing to a purpose.  Mary was a Goldberg machine accomplishing nothing; satchels and pumps, miles of this, yards of that, stitched seamlessly together, and for what?  Her cuticles were pinkish white.  Her little toes curled in.   

So she waited, a masterwork, poised, anus taut, feeling for the littlest imperfection of air through the crack of a door, the door, knowing that it would never come.

Huffing to her feet, Mary stomped out the extent of her now world.  Even diagonally. 

 But.  

The dimensions of the room did not help and, stopping, she stood, shamelessly, she, the all of her, firm, before the door on the left.  Why the left?  Because she wanted to, that was why.  Two ears, and two hands, and, and the parts of her there was only one of.  One belly button.  And, and.

“Screw you, you, stupid door,” she cried- she yelled- angry now, and Mary would have punched the stupid, stupid left hand sided thing as well, only, in the back of her mind…

She did not want to select that one by accident.

Accidentally.

Not when there were no instructions.  Because.  If there were two doors, then there were two other places as well, two other rooms, two... continuations, beyond, and who could tell, with the choice she made now, what else she might be selecting, what, continuum's, she might be enabling.  

Here.  

Now.  

In this minute.

Quickly, Mary hovered her lips before the crack of the left hand door, making it even, the same, in case, just in case, it made a difference, in case, celestial scales were tipping, had been tipped.  Sand trickling out.  

Into her mouth.  

And blood.

She moved back.  Mary wanted to cry.  No one cared.  No one, was making her do a thing, and yet, there was this, a... pressure, a... feeling, like a great clock, a clicking, ticking clock, ticking and clicking but somehow winding up, inside of her, not down, like a tightening screw.

In a rush, Mary sank to the floor, like a collapsed cake, and.  

Spread her legs.  

Pointed her feet towards the doors, the left to the left, the right to the right.  She was evenly divided, but not with intent.  She was only even because she was even.  She had two feet.

Should she choose... the door on the left?

Or the one on the right?

She felt frail.  She felt, like a skater, an ice skater, in late winter, the frozen surface slushy beneath her cutting metal blades and beyond, black depths, incomprehensibly vast.  The whole room felt like a late season, a dry egg shell, sun rotten stage prop, screws pulled loose, paint flaking away... long in the tooth.

The room felt like a disease, like emphysema, the air whisper thin.

“I don’t want to do this,” Mary said.  

She knew that everyone else who ever, ever was, had stood in this room.  Not this room.  Had stood, sat in a room of their own.  Had stood, sat, lain, cried, wept, died.  Not died.  In a room.  Just, a room.  Very like this one.  

What would happen if she stayed so long that the doors rotted away?  Could one do that?  Was there a.

Third choice?

But Mary...

“I don’t want to do this,” she said.

“I don’t want to,” she said, again, looking round.

And then.

A new thought.

What if there was only, nothing, beyond the doors?

What if, emptiness?  

What if.

Beyond this room, there were.

No more her.

No her even to miss her, no inner dialogue, no… just blackness, just… nothing?

The million, million parts of her, undone, unglued, unfastened and the real her, the part of her that was absolutely one, one part, one her, zipped away, not even into dust.

Not even.

But.

Mary gulped.

Desperately.

She looked up.

And she looked up.

And.

There were two doors.

Her legs hurt.

Her bottom hurt.

It could not be nothing, because, there were.

Two doors.

A door on the left, because.

It was on the left and.

A door on the right.

Mary breathed in.  She could feel her heart beating.  It was one of her single things.  A single heart.  A single belly button and a single brain.  A single her.  Tear herself in two?  Divide herself, right down the middle, half for the left door and half for the other; but, even so, there would still only be one her, one… Mary.

And.

Suddenly.

She was calm.  

It was an artificial thing, a pause in the fear, the terror of the nothing space, the emptiness, which might be hiding behind the door on the left, or the door on the right.  Or both of them.  There were two doors and so she had a pause.  There must be something out there.  

And.

She could not wait.  

And.

She must only go through one door.  

And.

Now.  

Because.

There would never, ever, never be any instructions.  Not for anybody.  But everybody.  Literally.  Simply.  Absolutely.  Everybody, had, must, stood, stand in a room, with two doors.  Mary knew that.  She didn’t know anything.  

She knew that.

There were two doors and one absolutely had to make a choice and one could not wait, and one could not cheat, and one could not find the instructions.  Because there were no instructions.  And everyone who had ever been, and ever would be, had stood in that room.  Not that room.

And.

Mary jerked open the door on the left.

On the right.

Left.

It was the door on the left.

She jerked it open.

No, she did not.

She did not have the courage for that.

Mary eased it open.

But the wind took it and slammed it back and the suck took her, the vacuous hunger.  It wrenched her out of the aeroplane, into the plane of air, into the great expanse of nothingness, of blue, of everything.  It bungled her about, flipping her over, and over.  The wind, which bore within itself every tree, and rock, and salt laden drop of the sea, forced itself up her nose, bloating her out, stretching her eyes.

And. 

Mary was falling, and falling, and falling, and the wind tore at her, flipping her to the left, and to the back, and twisting her like a tea towel and she laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and the sun blazed in her eyes, and she could not find the aeroplane with her eyes, could not look to see if it had two doors, or one, or a hundred, but it was in the past and did not matter because the now had her, the ever present, ever elastic and expanding... now.

The now.

And there was everything in the now.

Mary flipped, and held the wind steady with her body, and.

The curve of the earth bowed away from her in every direction and.

She could hardly see for tears. 

And.

With all the taste that ever were, or ever had been, in her mouth, she could hardly even distinguish.

The blood, and sand, and ropey spit.