I Never Felt Alone Except When I Remembered

There is a door in my house that is never closed. My grandmother would say,

- Yes it may let something in, but it also lets it out. She also would say, When you go to your room to sleep, go to sleep. And, When you go out to work, go to work, don’t look around at what you’re not doing. She wanted me to know: that’s how to stay safe.

I never asked from what.

The door is an inside door. I have no children, I invite no one over, I have no need to keep anyone safe the way I was kept safe. But it occurs to me that I will need to let someone know, someone will live here after me.

I write a note and stick it up next to the door with tape. I’m not that old though, and this note will need to remain posted another twenty years at least. I hope.

The note simply says what my grandmother told me, exactly as I remember it. The door must remain. The door must remain open. The door must remain free to close.

I find a nail and tack it to the edge of the door. I walk up to the door as if I haven’t lived in this house since I was born. I worry the nail is too high. I don’t go out often, so I forget that I’m tall. I pry the nail loose and hammer it lower. My grandmother would be proud I’m doing this for you.

Surely a child wouldn’t wander through the door unattended. I would judge that parent, but I would be dead in that situation. I can’t use the same note though, or it could be missed by an adult of normal or greater height. Perhaps three notes. That would make me feel better.

The paper yellows and grows brittle and I don’t look much at the door anyway since I mind my business, but it hits me that a note may not be adequate. As a child I was made physically aware of the importance. I’m doing this for you, for your safety. That’s how I learned.

I write another note, this one in block letters, I’M DOING THIS FOR YOU. That’s not what my grandmother said. I ball up the note, throw it away and write another. I’M DOING THIS BECAUSE I LOVE YOU. I don’t know who will live here after me, but as I don’t want harm to come to them, that must mean I have love in my heart, whoever they may be. I laugh at how my thoughts repeat and cast a desire to think better, even to myself.

I could hang a knife or baseball bat or the iron fireplace poker. That may send the wrong warning.

How do you ensure someone will do something after you’re gone? I still have a few years to figure out this problem.

Nothing was ever said about the area around the door. A trap, maybe, but nothing too severe. Just a warning trap. Just enough so that they’ll believe me. That they’ll believe me the way I believed my grandmother. I never doubted her, and I only tested her once.

Instruction must accompany correction. I consider those who take possession of this house after me to be my children in a way. I want what’s best for them. I want them to love this house the way I’ve loved this house. And to take care of it in the way that I’ve cared for it.

Writing is speaking to the future. Reading is listening to the past. It makes me feel so warm inside knowing the right people will end up here. I know this in the deepest crevices of my heart. No one that didn’t listen to the past would move into a house like this.

I write everything down. Every word I remember from my grandmother. Not from my parents, though who couldn’t stay here. Who couldn’t listen. I write everything and I copy what I wrote many times and places, wherever anyone might find it.

My memory is not what it used to be. Nothing is where I expect it to be. I reach for a dinner plate but find a few sheets of paper. My knives are hung in closets. There are phrases scratched into cabinets and walls. KEEP YOUR EYES TO YOURSELF. KEEP THE INNERMOST DOOR OPEN. I look at the ground, as my walking has turned to shuffling. I don’t know what is the innermost. Wire blocks the hallway from me.

WORK AND SLEEP. I have not done either in so long.

There is a clarity so pure I know it won’t last, know the fog will be burned away by a fire that will be snuffed as soon as it is lit. I remember my grandmother and how she kept me safe. I wonder where my mother and father went off to, and I try to imagine that it wasn’t somewhere terrible. I remember my feelings for whoever will come after me and that all these: the notes, the scratches, the knives and wires and painted warnings were all done by me, trying to talk to someone I’ll never meet, to keep them safe the way I was kept safe, to love them the way I was loved.

I have been faithful to the end. And yet, at the innermost part of the house, the threshold I have never crossed, with my final clear thought, I shut the door. Whatever evil I tempt will have me but for a moment.

My shuffle is now a crawl. I pull myself up to my knees and reach to pull down the signs which are now so brittle they fall as my fingertips only graze the edge. With the last of my strength I push the door closed, falling over, and hear it latch shut for the first time in my life. I lay down on the floor watching for its stalking presence that forever only remained at the periphery of my vision. Now I will keep my eyes open. I don’t know how much time passes as the silence gives way to sleep, my eyes grow weary, and I welcome sleep.