It was overcast each time I looked at the sky above and behind the large white mansion; yet, as I looked above and behind me, the sky was blue and clear. The house swayed, sort of; you might say it bent as I moved around it. The forest behind it was dark and dense, yet I knew that the unlit ground beneath the enormous, beautiful, dark green pines was thick with green plants.
I wanted to find an entrance to the house—yet I really didn't care. Well I did care, but not an awful lot. I walked along the outside of the picket fence observing the doorless house. I did not watch where I was walking, but I knew my way around and moved with no problem. Some body spoke. I couldn't understand, so I listened intently for more words. Once again, somebody said something. He seemed to speak in a foreign language.
I turned to see who was calling to me. Although I did not recognize him, I knew just who he was—a very good friend of mine. I felt happy to see him there, but I felt the advice he was giving me was only a point of departure for what I had to do myself. I had to find that door, and now all that he was saying was, "Wait for the door to open." Some advice, right? I walked around it twenty times before I saw the door. It wasn't big, yet it wasn't small; it wasn't beautiful, yet it beckoned to me, and I wanted to run to it. Now my friend's advice seemed urgent. "Wait," he kept saying. "Wait for it to open." It opened, slowly, yet it seemed to be very sure of itself as it opened. It didn't want to snap a frozen hinge, its only hinge. I walked on the porch toward the open door, but my dream ended there.
© Copyright 2002 by Robert J. R. Rockwood. All rights reserved.