Monday, September 17, 2007
I walk into the empty room and I see the dim light yielded in by the window in the centre of the locked door. My eye runs through every inch of its wood, fondling all of its most recondite details, each of the scratches it's made of. They tell of touches, of accidents, of smears, of sneakily-carved inscriptions of capital initials inside heart shapes, of all sorts of moments endured and enjoyed which are as much its feature as any of its original cuttings.
I no longer have the key. Maybe no one else does. The translucence of the thick glass of the central window is tenuous, even in the brightest hours, and thus nothing outside will be seen as it is today. Outside, the garden will remain forever as it always was and has been in my memory, a place of smiling discoveries; a nook for innocence sheltered from the disorderly extramural world; the final inattained frontier of wistful profusion in which I indulge. And so much the better.
I approach. I touch the athermic surface of the wood, almost haptically aethereal, were it not so massive and obviously thick, upon which Time seems to come to no effect. I slide my hand down to feel the knob, wide and mighty, motionless as always. It was one of those very old knobs that do not turn, save by the key. I touch it with the greatest respect my hands can express. The coldness of the metal stirs more sensuous imprints and I feel my whole body in relation to the door. And only to it.
I am awakened. In three or four words, I am told that the time has come and they need to do what needs to be done, that my time is over when I couldn't even say goodbye. But, in a certain way, it was this door who most needed to bid me farewell than the other way round. I walk out of the room and prefer not to cast onto anything one last glance.
When I come outside, I hear again the bells that toll for the house, in the form of the hoist that draws near. I shield the world from seeing my eyes with the sunglasses I put on, but there are no tears in them. The door has already given me all the consolations that I needed. In a last analysis, that's what I'll miss the most.
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