It's hard to walk away from a revolving door.
You keep turning back- waiting for the whirr of a new entry, keeping an ear out for the sudden speed of a behavioral change- or the jolt when someone sticks out a hand and stops for some peace.
You wait for the wind of a different destiny to tickle your heels- so you walk slowly, with all your attention flung behind, wondering when the door will spill out something to save you from this new path you’re dawdling upon.
But revolving doors weren't made for safety.
They were designed for hotels and restaurants- where people feast and love and lie and- then?
Then, they go home, and haul out a bunch of keys and start opening up their real lives.
Revolving doors are only for people intent on speed- and the next circle out and up, into a street glittering with possibility and varnished into newness.
Even when the street’s old and bears the imprint of hooker heels from all the yesterdays reliving something unexpected – it’s still alluring.
Those doors are for people who know all about vicious circles, and the need to walk through as quick as can be.
But plenty of folks never realise that you have to leave that halcyon misted hotel first, to walk away from the revolving door and into the next enchantment.
They just- forget to leave.
So they walk out, and fumble with their change when a cab screeches to a halt- and then they wave it along because they’ve spied a familiar face, and it’s always good to catch up, isn’t it?
And they heave a secret sigh of relief, ‘cos they weren’t too sure what directions they'd have given the driver anyways.
And perhaps that is why so many people live in the entryways, neither here nor there- looking for company to while away the hours between then and where.
It’s hard to walk away from a revolving door.
You need a map for those kinda straight lines, and you need a straighter spine too.
And you need the kind of company who will tell you to move, even when something in their eyes wishes you to stay.
And maybe then, when you do have a shiver of weakness after all those miles, and turn to look back at that revolving door, it will just be an ugly building, surrounded by drunks.
And it won’t matter, then, that your straight line doesn’t end as quick as you wanted- it’s alright to just be walking along without running from something.
And when you stop- it'll be because you're tired from your own Godgiven tread.
Not 'cos you're waiting for someone else to catch up.
Who knows?
Maybe with all that walking, you’ll even find yourself home.
Ahhh, I Love it.
ReplyDeleteHey Miss T-
ReplyDeleteThank you:)
X
As Douglas Adams once observed, people like to gather at boundary conditions. Where sea meets shore, where sky meets earth. They like to live in one and look at the other. And should we not pause whenever we reach a threshold?
ReplyDeleteIt's a lovely piece, Pser. You know I find I have to stop myself calling them revolting doors? :)
Hey T.
ReplyDeletelol...I suppose they are that, as well?
Boundary conditions? I like the sound of that...the incipient magic too.
Actually....I think it's because you just reminded me of Neil Gaiman's book Stardust.
(It was a lovely whimsical read)
that's so astute. That attraction to things moving, knowing inside that the movement means little, but still, still craving the movement, unable to leave, unwilling to stop yourself and consider where you would like that cab driver to go to. Because if the contrived movement ceased, how would you face yourself not having moved at all.
ReplyDeletesusu
External movement stills us to some degree- like working hard all day, and coming home to a deathlike dreamless sleep.
ReplyDeleteIt- has its advantages I suppose.
Just somewhere along the line, we ought to ask ourselves if we like the work, and the dreamless state.
(And that is a tangential comment, if ever there was one! My revolving door was a person.)