The Painted Door

For what feels like an eternity, I stare at the bloodied body without being able to move. It's sprawled at my feet, limbs flung wide open, limp, each arm and leg pointing in a different direction on the filthy cobblestone ground of the tiny, walled, dark, and abandoned courtyard. Above us, the moonlight and the sparks of stars flicker behind white clouds that slice through a deep blue sky, like ghost ships crossing distant, uncharted seas—the lairs of mythical creatures and fearsome leviathans.

With my free hand, I grope blindly at my own stomach, applying pressure to the wounds, the deep cuts that tore through flesh and muscles during the fight. Warm, dark blood gushes between my fingers, trickling down my arm, soaking the inner sleeve of my shirt and jacket.

A lantern shines through the fogged glass of a third-floor window in the adjacent building. I run and hide, crouching behind a bush. Clenching my teeth, I stifle a groan.

"Who's there?!" demands the gruff, weathered voice of an old man. Through the tangle of leaves, cloaked in shadows, I watch him. He wears a long, white cotton nightgown and a matching cap. One hand holds the open window, while the other grips the lit lantern. He squints and scans the courtyard, fixing his gaze on the body. "Hey! Hey, you degenerate drunkard, go die somewhere else, Satan! Shoo, shoo!" He yells like this for a minute or two, then grunts, mutters a curse, shuts the window, and disappears along with the light inside the room.

I lift my head and look around, peering through one of the gaps in the ancient stone wall into the street. Seeing no one, I seize the opportunity to leave the scene: I rise, pull myself over the wall, and slip into the narrow, winding cobblestone streets. I try to move quickly but quietly. I fail at both: the wound slows me down, saps my strength, the precision of my movements; and wherever I pass, I catch the attention of horses tied to posts or hitched to carriages, and dogs guarding gardens and courtyards. The former neigh and snort; the latter bark, bare their teeth, and growl behind fences, stone walls, or the iron bars of gates.

The streets are deserted, except for the animals; silent, save for their sounds, the gusts of wind, the rustling of leaves, the creak of hinges on lonely shop and tavern signs swaying in the dim light. Of the lanterns hanging from sparsely spaced posts along the paths, only a few remain lit. I regret coming on foot, but at the same time, I know I had no choice: I couldn’t risk having the coachman as a witness, and driving my own carriage alone would have raised too many suspicions. A rider draws far more attention than a man on foot; a man can move unnoticed, can hide at the first sign of danger, can leap over walls and slip through courtyards unseen, can climb walls and travel across rooftops.

After a while, I stop feeling my legs, stop perceiving their movement. Despite my thick, fine clothes, I feel a terrible cold creeping up my spine, stabbing beneath my ribs, filling my chest and guts with dread. I collapse on my knees beside a wall and sit with my back against it, in a dark alley, sheltered by shadows, trash, and foul smells. Just a minute, I think, I only need a minute. If I allow myself one or a hundred, I can’t say, but I wake startled when the clamor of sirens and bells reaches my ears. I’ve been discovered! They’re after me…

I bury the fingers of my free hand in the crevices of the wall, between the stones, and pull myself back onto my feet. I resume dragging myself forward, attempting to run. I stagger in zigzags, stumble and nearly fall, collide with posts, carriages, empty stakes, and walls, yet press on, one street at a time and one turn at a time, choosing the most crooked and darkest paths, cutting through back alleys, narrow lanes, and forgotten open courtyards. The dreadful symphony of the pursuit never seems far but also doesn’t gain on me as much as I fear. It follows me closely, always keeping the same distance, as if it were holding back, for now. It is a macabre, inhuman sound, seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere at once.

I am about to turn a corner when I see… the light — unlike any other I have ever encountered. It is not yellow or orange like the light of fire or lanterns. It is white, pulsating, alive, like sunlight itself. I stop, leaning against the wall of a building, mesmerized. The light crawls over the cobblestones like a living thing, formless and boundless. As it approaches, the colors of the lanterns, the animals, the stones, the ground, the walls—everything it is about to touch—fade away. It is as if the light is absorbing these colors, transforming objects into pencil sketches on white paper, like the ones I make before transferring my drawings in color to the canvases that I exchange for prestige, privilege and fortune. Then the light swallows them, sucks up the colorless drafts as well, consumes them as if it were an immense, infinite mouth— the mouth of God, reclaiming into cosmic oblivion the living and the dead of this world. Behind the blinding curtain, the world disappears, ceasing to exist in a way that defies both physics and human intellect. Slowly, the light moves forward, a white void, smooth and shapeless, transforming what once was into nothingness.

It is at that moment that the bells and sirens grow louder and closer, unbearably near. I look around and then start running again: I cross the intersection, with the light devouring the finite world to my right, and follow the street perpendicular to its advance. In a desperate attempt to lose my pursuers, I turn corners at random, sometimes left, sometimes right, zigzagging northward. My twists and turns are not always aimless; at times, I am forced to turn here and there or backtrack when the wall of light appears just a few steps ahead of me, burning my eyes and rushing to envelop me. I shield my face behind my free hand and dive into the first available path to the right or left, or pivot on my heels and retrace my steps to the previous crossroads.

Thus, I conquer the paved streets and the dirt roads, crossing the mile-long stretch that separates the town from my private hill and the mansion crowning it. I pass through the garden gates and rush to the front door. The guards and other staff still awake at this hour are startled, surrounding me, offering to help me walk, to carry me to a bed, a chair. They inquire about my injury, whether they should send a rider to fetch the physician from the village. I command them all to step back, to leave me alone, ordering that every door and window be sealed. For a brief moment, I work alongside them in this endeavor, but then I turn and make my way down the corridors to the bedroom.

I kneel by the side of the massive canopy bed and touch Maria’s warm face as she sleeps in peace and oblivion, undisturbed by the banging of doors, the shouted exchange of orders, or the music threatening to unravel my perfect world—the clamor of that million-strong chorus of sirens and bells. Gently, I wake her and help her to her feet.

“Quickly, my love. Come with me, you must come with me,” I whisper urgently, pulling her by the hand.

She follows, trembling, crying, asking about all that blood, about the injuries, and the blood, the blood, THE BLOOD… So it was all over, then? Had I won? Were we finally free to live our love, no longer bound by escapes, lies, persecutions, or consequences?

I pull her by the hand through the corridors to my studio. Along the way, I grab one of the lanterns hanging from rings fixed to the stone walls. I enter, pull her inside, and lock the door behind us. Frantically, I fly from one side of the room to the other, ensuring all other entrances and windows are shut as well. I move unsteadily, stumbling, pushing aside finished paintings, knocking over empty easels, unfinished canvases, and tables cluttered with papers, palettes, jars of paint, and brushes.

Once convinced that every possible entry is sealed, I return to Maria, grasping her hand again, and lead her toward one of the walls. I scour the floor for a brush and a jar of paint. When I open the first jar, I find inside a solid, useless, gray lump. I hurry around the room, gathering more jars, only to find them equally futile. I try using the paint from the palettes, attempting to make it at least pliable with saliva, but to no avail. I find myself clutching a dry, useless brush, turning helplessly in place, sobbing, groaning in pain.

Then I remember the wound—the blood.

I return to the wall, grip trembling, inconsolable, and bewildered Maria’s hand, dip the brush into my own wound, pulling it out with bristles drenched in blood, dripping red. Together, we approach the wall, and I begin to work. The bells and sirens grow ever closer, unbearably close, now just outside the corridor, sounding in neighboring rooms. With desperate and vigorous strokes, I paint a door, a doorknob, our only escape route. In my mind, I paint on the other side the perfect world, the perfect life, the happy ending we deserve.

I squeeze Maria’s hand a little tighter. I let the brush slip from my sticky, blood-soaked fingers, falling with a muffled thud beneath the cacophony of sirens and bells. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. With my free hand, I reach toward the doorknob and grasp... Nothing.

No, no, no, this can’t be...

I open my eyes and try again, this time keeping them wide open. Around us, the bells and sirens engulf the world, drowning out every other sound and voice. I try to scream, but no sound comes out. I look around, over my shoulder: from every corner of the studio, through the cracks in the windows and doors, the white, deadly light, that devouring force, seeps into the room. It stretches through gaps between boards and under the passages, swallowing colors, easels, brushes, canvases, and loose sheets of paper. I turn to Maria for one last embrace, but there is no time to know if the movement is completed or if the light is faster, extinguishing us before our farewell can come to fruition.

——

I wake up with my head pounding, the bells and sirens exploding within my temples, and then the music begins to make sense. It sounds familiar, and I realize it is not composed of actual bells or sirens. Blindly, I stretch my arm to the side, fumbling for my phone on the nightstand, and turn off the alarm. I squint at the blinding white light of the sun streaming through the window of my small room, at the foot of my bed. Instinctively, still shrouded in the fog of dreams, I touch my stomach, searching for wounds, only to find it unscathed.

Afterward, I get up, wait for the occupant of room 23 to finish their shower, take mine, get dressed, fill my travel mug with coffee in the kitchen on the ground floor of the pension, and rush to the bus stop a block away. Exactly at 7:45 AM, I knock on the side door of the café where I work, located in the food court on the second floor of the Central Mall. William, the grumpy and bald manager, lets me in with a scowl and a grunt. I promptly put on my apron over my uniform, wear my cap, and take up my position.

By 8:00 AM, we are open and running full steam.

At 8:17 AM, Maria arrives—my sweet, small, slender, blonde, and gentle Maria with blue eyes. It’s Thursday, and as usual, she is accompanied by her husband. He looks different in twenty-first-century clothes, free of blood, with both eyes intact and without fatal gashes across his neck. They hold hands as they stand in line. At 8:22 AM, they are in front of me, smiling and politely placing their order.

While they speak and smile, and I absentmindedly jot down their requests, I see through the space between their bodies and heads, across the food court, into the art studio on the other side. At once, even from that distance, my eyes find the painting that captivated me three days ago, among the dozens of canvases and easels displayed in the windows: a couple holding hands before a door painted on a wall; the man, clearly a celebrated artist from the eighteenth or nineteenth century, still clutching a brush wet with paint. And the door, that door…

Ah! That door, and that freedom.

And that door…

And suddenly, they could go anywhere they wanted to, could love each other and be happy wherever they pleased, as much as their hearts desired, in any place they chose, and nothing else could follow them, not through that door—nothing beyond them would be able to cross it, certainly nothing bad or evil.

I finish jotting down their order, we exchange pleasantries, and the couple turns their back on me; Maria turns her back on me, taking a seat at one of the tables with her husband. The two share a brief kiss, a tender smile. Clearing my throat, I call out in a loud and steady voice:

“Next!”

And the line moves, and life goes on around here.