K. Garner is currently perfecting the arts of Being Penniless and Doing Sod All. Although, if anyone asks, she
is busy patiently waiting for her cells to get a move on and take the next evolutionary leap and give her the
power of flight. Once evolution gets its backside in gear and she can fly, she intends to spend all day dancing
on rooftops. Possibly, this means she is merely waiting for evolution to turn her into Dick Van Dyke circa Mary
Poppins, but she is surprisingly okay with that.
is busy patiently waiting for her cells to get a move on and take the next evolutionary leap and give her the
power of flight. Once evolution gets its backside in gear and she can fly, she intends to spend all day dancing
on rooftops. Possibly, this means she is merely waiting for evolution to turn her into Dick Van Dyke circa Mary
Poppins, but she is surprisingly okay with that.
Emily as a Doorknob
"Are you born with the cry of a hinge?" she said, soft, as she crouched down behind the door.
The door held crocodiles in its grain's grasp, flat and static and big and brown. They could hardly be seen tangled in with the
fainter curves that made the bubbles of their swamp. But she could see them; they were there. The curve of one's mouth lay
next to her and the dart board round eyes she counted (one, two, three) like knots and tree trunks never blinked at her or
said anything but still, still. The crocodiles never bared their brown teeth and neither did she (ne-ver smile at a croc-co-dile)
and she never dared to touch them either.
From the corner, her back up against the wall, she stretched out her arm as far as it would go, until her fingers struggled on
the doorknob; conquering armies of bone and skin scrambling and twisting until - bam - it shut. Doors were never Shut.
Mummy and Father said to always keep hers Open. Her fingers, pudgy like slugs bent at angles in agony, had won and with
the recoil of her elbow, made quick their guilty retreat.
Her Parents said to keep her door Open, but she'd hid under her desk and they'd found her and asked her Questions that all
meant why; fired them like the re-pe-ti-tive sound of Mummy's fingertips on the typewriter until they all sounded like clacking
and nonsense. She'd crawled under there again, slightly too big to fit and pulled the chair in (like Mummy told her to) and
folded her bones around it. Shut her eyes tight and put her hands over her face and held her breath until the tribes in her
ears beat their drums. And still they found her.
Mummy pulled her out by her arm and told her something about putting her head in the sand that Father snapped that she
wouldn't understand. For Christ's sake, she's too young for a Meter For. Mummy's lipstick mouth wriggled, a worm on a
hook, when she told Father that he was saying it wrong and he meant something else anyway and don't preach at me you son
of a bitch when you don't even know what you're talking about.
She'd bit her fingers against an Unsuitable Laugh because Father had gone red like one of the bright red giant pepper-pots
that played musical statues on street corners that Mummy pushed paper and en-vel-opes into. He didn't finished his sentence
(a Meter For what, she wondered), and it was like the magician on her Birthday three (one, two, three) years ago, whose bunny
fell into a Tunnel and kept falling and falling and didn't want to come back out of the hat, because the bunny didn't like Bad
Children who cried.
She didn't cry anymore, because she didn't want anyone else to fall and fall with her in the dark, but she still had to hide. A
Shut door was far better than hiding under the desk (the desk dark like a matchbox around her, waiting for her head to be
struck on the sandpaper side) and far better than putting her head in the sand (it didn't pour its fingers into her mouth and
choke). And the Shut door gave crocodiles to save her.
"I've got a secret," she told the hinges as the blue carpet closed like the maws of the sea overhead.
The reliable wall was still at her back, cold like a friend or when Mummy came back in at night after 'getting some air'. She
didn't know where Mummy stole her air from, but it must've been special or Magic, because it swirled around her and smelled
like crackles and mist, and Father always looked cross and jealous when Mummy came back in, his eyebrows furrowing and
burrowing together like two cats raging at each other through glass.
Folding herself up until she fit in the walls' corner, her fingers pressed until the door was Shut again. All around her, the room
loomed large, and she squashed herself smaller and smaller until her elbows went through her ribs and her chin became her
knees and she vanished, safe from all the space she couldn't fill.
The wardrobe was wood, and the chest of drawers and the desk were too, like the door. But the door was safe and Shut like a
friend and, one night when the hinges rattled as other doors were Shut - but more SHUT - and Mummy and Father shouted,
she'd had a dream. In the dream she woke up and the wardrobe and drawers and desk were made of flies; shiny and blue and
black like jewellery bruises, hissing and metal and swarming. Those flies from summer, crawling over each other like everything
was rotten: Blue Bottles, Mummy had said, face creased newspaper as she swatted them away, and they must've been Magic
too, like the Green Bottles Mummy hid in the cellar and under the sink, where No One Could See. Maybe they were more Magic
though, she thought, because the Blue Bottles got Mummy cross a lot quicker than Green. In her dream she could hear the
buzz and swarm of their bodies and wings, nightmares and voices licking like fireworks and flame.
She awoke with a scream on her lips that she trapped behind the bars of her fingers. Dark and shadows had surrounded her
and the house had rung with the sounds of Father trying to be quiet as he Shut the spare bedroom's door. She didn't trust
the desk or the drawers or the wardrobe anymore, or the spaces that pleaded around them.
The hinges were safe, though. They were gold, round like fat pennies or bullets. "Per-per-trait-er," she whispered in a hiss to
the hinges and the crocodiles didn't stir. Held between two fingers and thumb, she raised the crayon (Crayola: Brick Red) to
her lips and bit at it until the wax curled like puppet show curtains in her mouth and her lips closed around it, taking a bow.
She lit the end with a flick of her thumb in the air and puffed up her cheeks around a breath she blew out as she waved off
invisible smoke.
She scratched at her hair, like Mummy always said not to, but the man on the te-le-vi-sion had done it a lot, and Mummy
hadn't told him off. "I'll tell you a secret," she said to the hinges, "I'm Columbo." The word tasted new, like coins and scissors,
and made her lips move like she was blowing up the balloon of the sound and tying the end in a bow. "I'm Columbo," she said
again, through a crayon and a smile, "and I've got a crime to solve." The front door opened and SHUT and made her
crocodiles' teeth and fat pennies fizz and rattle. She bit the crayon and sucked on the paper and thought how Mummy always
smelled like Magic, not wax.
"I've got a secret," she says to the hinges; we'll never tell, they call back.
The doorknob's large and cold and round and swallows whole her palm. There'll be fingerprints on it now, when the po-lice
come to dust. There's a hummingbird above the crocodiles, stuck in amber and forever never in flight. She hadn't seen it
before, but Mummy fought off the crocodiles three days ago and didn't listen to the hinges when they cried stop, stop!
Mummy opened the door and found her behind, pulled her away by her ears this time instead of her arm. Why are you hiding?
You're too old for this! I can't believe you still... Mummy's voice dragged her out, rising louder and louder until the crocodiles
hid and the sea ran away, scared, leaving jellyfish and books and shoes behind, scattered driftwood and rags swept on the
floor. Mummy's eyes' black ate their normal brown and it must've eaten the bones in her fingers too, because they were
shaking. Mummy told her to keep the door Open again.
She smiled, because Mummy thought that she had nowhere left to hide.
Now no one can open the door; no one ever can again. Her hinges are further away, but she's got the hummingbird to trust
now and her weight solid against the wood's windmill underneath the doorknob. No one can open the door. Because she's
got all these creatures to trust.
"I'll tell you a secret," she says, mouth hot against the metal doorknob. She can see blood on her hand, its print on the old
gold doorknob, red blood or wine or flower. She can see her own face in the smooth dull reflection, all bent out of shape, like a
mirror metal ghost watching the world and the sea and the flies. More doors SHUT and footsteps claw at the floorboards
outside her room, creaking and groaning ghouls that shake their chains at the jailers in her mind.
"I could be trapped in there," she breathes, secret, into her own round reflection as the doorknob turns from the Outside and
the door swings open wide. I already am cries the doorknob as it twists and turns to survive.
"Are you born with the cry of a hinge?" she said, soft, as she crouched down behind the door.
The door held crocodiles in its grain's grasp, flat and static and big and brown. They could hardly be seen tangled in with the
fainter curves that made the bubbles of their swamp. But she could see them; they were there. The curve of one's mouth lay
next to her and the dart board round eyes she counted (one, two, three) like knots and tree trunks never blinked at her or
said anything but still, still. The crocodiles never bared their brown teeth and neither did she (ne-ver smile at a croc-co-dile)
and she never dared to touch them either.
From the corner, her back up against the wall, she stretched out her arm as far as it would go, until her fingers struggled on
the doorknob; conquering armies of bone and skin scrambling and twisting until - bam - it shut. Doors were never Shut.
Mummy and Father said to always keep hers Open. Her fingers, pudgy like slugs bent at angles in agony, had won and with
the recoil of her elbow, made quick their guilty retreat.
Her Parents said to keep her door Open, but she'd hid under her desk and they'd found her and asked her Questions that all
meant why; fired them like the re-pe-ti-tive sound of Mummy's fingertips on the typewriter until they all sounded like clacking
and nonsense. She'd crawled under there again, slightly too big to fit and pulled the chair in (like Mummy told her to) and
folded her bones around it. Shut her eyes tight and put her hands over her face and held her breath until the tribes in her
ears beat their drums. And still they found her.
Mummy pulled her out by her arm and told her something about putting her head in the sand that Father snapped that she
wouldn't understand. For Christ's sake, she's too young for a Meter For. Mummy's lipstick mouth wriggled, a worm on a
hook, when she told Father that he was saying it wrong and he meant something else anyway and don't preach at me you son
of a bitch when you don't even know what you're talking about.
She'd bit her fingers against an Unsuitable Laugh because Father had gone red like one of the bright red giant pepper-pots
that played musical statues on street corners that Mummy pushed paper and en-vel-opes into. He didn't finished his sentence
(a Meter For what, she wondered), and it was like the magician on her Birthday three (one, two, three) years ago, whose bunny
fell into a Tunnel and kept falling and falling and didn't want to come back out of the hat, because the bunny didn't like Bad
Children who cried.
She didn't cry anymore, because she didn't want anyone else to fall and fall with her in the dark, but she still had to hide. A
Shut door was far better than hiding under the desk (the desk dark like a matchbox around her, waiting for her head to be
struck on the sandpaper side) and far better than putting her head in the sand (it didn't pour its fingers into her mouth and
choke). And the Shut door gave crocodiles to save her.
"I've got a secret," she told the hinges as the blue carpet closed like the maws of the sea overhead.
The reliable wall was still at her back, cold like a friend or when Mummy came back in at night after 'getting some air'. She
didn't know where Mummy stole her air from, but it must've been special or Magic, because it swirled around her and smelled
like crackles and mist, and Father always looked cross and jealous when Mummy came back in, his eyebrows furrowing and
burrowing together like two cats raging at each other through glass.
Folding herself up until she fit in the walls' corner, her fingers pressed until the door was Shut again. All around her, the room
loomed large, and she squashed herself smaller and smaller until her elbows went through her ribs and her chin became her
knees and she vanished, safe from all the space she couldn't fill.
The wardrobe was wood, and the chest of drawers and the desk were too, like the door. But the door was safe and Shut like a
friend and, one night when the hinges rattled as other doors were Shut - but more SHUT - and Mummy and Father shouted,
she'd had a dream. In the dream she woke up and the wardrobe and drawers and desk were made of flies; shiny and blue and
black like jewellery bruises, hissing and metal and swarming. Those flies from summer, crawling over each other like everything
was rotten: Blue Bottles, Mummy had said, face creased newspaper as she swatted them away, and they must've been Magic
too, like the Green Bottles Mummy hid in the cellar and under the sink, where No One Could See. Maybe they were more Magic
though, she thought, because the Blue Bottles got Mummy cross a lot quicker than Green. In her dream she could hear the
buzz and swarm of their bodies and wings, nightmares and voices licking like fireworks and flame.
She awoke with a scream on her lips that she trapped behind the bars of her fingers. Dark and shadows had surrounded her
and the house had rung with the sounds of Father trying to be quiet as he Shut the spare bedroom's door. She didn't trust
the desk or the drawers or the wardrobe anymore, or the spaces that pleaded around them.
The hinges were safe, though. They were gold, round like fat pennies or bullets. "Per-per-trait-er," she whispered in a hiss to
the hinges and the crocodiles didn't stir. Held between two fingers and thumb, she raised the crayon (Crayola: Brick Red) to
her lips and bit at it until the wax curled like puppet show curtains in her mouth and her lips closed around it, taking a bow.
She lit the end with a flick of her thumb in the air and puffed up her cheeks around a breath she blew out as she waved off
invisible smoke.
She scratched at her hair, like Mummy always said not to, but the man on the te-le-vi-sion had done it a lot, and Mummy
hadn't told him off. "I'll tell you a secret," she said to the hinges, "I'm Columbo." The word tasted new, like coins and scissors,
and made her lips move like she was blowing up the balloon of the sound and tying the end in a bow. "I'm Columbo," she said
again, through a crayon and a smile, "and I've got a crime to solve." The front door opened and SHUT and made her
crocodiles' teeth and fat pennies fizz and rattle. She bit the crayon and sucked on the paper and thought how Mummy always
smelled like Magic, not wax.
"I've got a secret," she says to the hinges; we'll never tell, they call back.
The doorknob's large and cold and round and swallows whole her palm. There'll be fingerprints on it now, when the po-lice
come to dust. There's a hummingbird above the crocodiles, stuck in amber and forever never in flight. She hadn't seen it
before, but Mummy fought off the crocodiles three days ago and didn't listen to the hinges when they cried stop, stop!
Mummy opened the door and found her behind, pulled her away by her ears this time instead of her arm. Why are you hiding?
You're too old for this! I can't believe you still... Mummy's voice dragged her out, rising louder and louder until the crocodiles
hid and the sea ran away, scared, leaving jellyfish and books and shoes behind, scattered driftwood and rags swept on the
floor. Mummy's eyes' black ate their normal brown and it must've eaten the bones in her fingers too, because they were
shaking. Mummy told her to keep the door Open again.
She smiled, because Mummy thought that she had nowhere left to hide.
Now no one can open the door; no one ever can again. Her hinges are further away, but she's got the hummingbird to trust
now and her weight solid against the wood's windmill underneath the doorknob. No one can open the door. Because she's
got all these creatures to trust.
"I'll tell you a secret," she says, mouth hot against the metal doorknob. She can see blood on her hand, its print on the old
gold doorknob, red blood or wine or flower. She can see her own face in the smooth dull reflection, all bent out of shape, like a
mirror metal ghost watching the world and the sea and the flies. More doors SHUT and footsteps claw at the floorboards
outside her room, creaking and groaning ghouls that shake their chains at the jailers in her mind.
"I could be trapped in there," she breathes, secret, into her own round reflection as the doorknob turns from the Outside and
the door swings open wide. I already am cries the doorknob as it twists and turns to survive.
K. Garner
