Sunday, October 4, 2009

In my mind, I saw the entire hallway on fire. People would run out of their rooms, knocking into each other in blind panic. But the door at the end of the hallway was locked. They would run up to me and they would yell,

“Do you have the keys? Do you have them?”

And I would smile at them and shrug. There’s nothing I can do. I don’t have the key. But I did have the key; it was in my pocket. That’s what made it a game, they didn’t know, and I did, and the hallway was on fire, and the door was locked. So I would watch them pile up at the door, stepping on each other, brute and bovine, but they still couldn’t open the door. I would begin to walk toward the door.

“Do you have the keys? Please, oh god, please!” they would yell.

I would calmly regard the crowd. I would clear my throat, step over the bodies that had been pushed to the floor, and make my way to the door. The only door. And I would take out my key, and unlock it. And they would call me a hero.

1 comment: