Door

‘Don’t- Don’t- Don’t wake up!’ The voice in her head screams, blasting through her eardrums and cause her headache to worsen. Her alarm is blaring in the background, and she can’t even muster the energy to shut it off. Another day, she wishes she could slink back into the covers and drown in the endless darkness of her dreams. She wants to avoid reality but, then the second of irrationality passes, and she is now fully awake. She rises and makes the bed before slinking into the bathroom to freshen up.

She stares into the mirror, and a haggard pale reflection stares back at her. Nothing a little makeup won’t fix, she chuckles to herself. She emerges from the bathroom looking like a completely different person but feeling even worse as the reality that she has to go through the door grips her again. She ignores the thought again and switches on the news. Horrible sees blast across the screen. It’s the news that sells; after all, the world is broken sucks to be us. She sighs as she lowers the volume. A ding brings her back; her toast is done.

She bits down on her toast, takes a deep breath then opens her laptop. The loading circle loops around, and with each turn, her heartbeat grows more anxious, as if awaiting the coming of doom. Finally, an image pops up on the screen. A kindly aged woman appears. Her hair is done in a messy bun of grey hair, her eyes dark and warm, her skin dewy chocolate with a few wrinkles of time.

“Hi mum,” she smiles at the kind face. The shake in her voice betrays her restless heart, but the kind woman doesn’t notice.

“My darling Lisa, how are things?”

“You know the usual.”

The conversation drags on for another ten minutes, full of pleasantries and ubiquitous facts, but Lisa’s mum enjoys every minute of it. She is so grateful that her daughter can find time to talk to her every day, even for ten minutes. After that incident, she rarely heard from her daughter and is exuberant to see that she is doing well.

“How about we have lunch this weekend; it would be so good to see you again, Lisa.” Lisa can feel the longing dripping from her mum’s voice, and it practically tears her apart to disappoint her again.

She tries to open her mouth to say yes, may just this once, it might not be so bad. She tries to imagine it, but just then, it comes back, nagging and clawing at her insides, and all she can muster is a weak, “maybe another time...”

Her mother smiles understandingly, “it’s okay dear, whenever you want, I’ll be right here.”

“I know mum, love you.”

“Love you too.”

The screen goes black, and Lisa looks up and buries her face in her hand. The worry and disappointment she saw won’t leave her head. ‘Another thing to agonize over’, Lisa sighs before closing her laptop, stuffing it into her satchel before slinging the satchel over her shoulder. Her mind doesn’t register how she reaches the door, but she stands paralyzed before it for a few minutes before finally reaching for the knob.

For the next slow and agonizing minute, she turns the knob, and with a click, the door opens. Lisa slowly pokes her head out; seeing no one, she presses her hat down and heads for the elevator. Every step feels like lead, and she can’t help but wonder how just breathing became such an exercise. After what seems like a century, she reaches the elevator and extends a shaking finger towards the down button.

Suddenly, she hears footsteps. Lisa looks up in a panic to see a man walking towards her from the other side. From his slumping hat and frequent glances to his watch, one could tell that this man is very late and in much of a hurry. He reaches Lisa, before long, who has just now gotten control of the fear plastered across her face. Unfortunately, she has not gotten a hold of the fear plastered across her heart. The elevator dings, and the doors open; the man hurries into the elevator and pauses for a moment when he notices his elevator partner does not enter. The woman stands in front of the hall with her head to the ground, a hat obscuring her features.

“Aren’t you getting on?” he asks, bewildered and receives no reply.

Usually, he might have asked again in case she didn’t hear him. However, this didn’t seem to be the case; unfortunately, he was in much too much of a hurry to care. He pressed the ground button and kept his hand close to the open button in case the woman showed any sign of joining him. However, it was for not as the woman stood frozen in front of the elevator the whole time.

A while after the man is gone, the woman finally looks up and briskly walks back to her door. Fumbling with the keys, she finally unlocks the door. Entering into her safe haven, she promptly locks the door behind her, latching, clicking and turning seven different installed safety locks. Finally, she slides down the door and clutches her knees whilst shaking.

Images flash through her mind, the sound of glass shuttering makes her heart thump even more furiously, and one gravelly voice repeats, over and over again, “I will find you!”

That man had looked so similar…

She stays in that same spot for the rest of the day, thinking. She had been living her life as if nothing had happened, but the signs were there.

Stopped going to the gym: buying my own equipment would be cheaper in the long run.

Avoiding people: I’m swamped when work eases up.

No more bars and restaurants: It’s cheaper to cook besides I have enough friends.

‘I had an excuse for everything, didn’t I’ Lisa thought to herself ‘it was just the wrong excuse. Maybe I should finally admit that I do need some help; heh, they said the truth would set you free. So corny.’

‘Maybe I can finally start living life again,’ that was her last wistful thought before she fell asleep still in the same spot.