Something Forgotten

Good doors, bad doors, three memories, bad doors first.

1. I was about early twenties old and I had gone for an audition, my first for a community theatre group. I arrived a little early and was sitting in the kitchen waiting and looking along the corridor to the front door and escape. On the left, half way along the corridor, behind another door I could see the movement and more or less hear the action of the preceding audition. Minutes passed like days, tension and anxiety increased and when the door opened and, humbled and embarrased I was invited in - I made an excuse, “I’ve changed my mind “ and left.

2. Mid twenties, driving alone to Spain for the first time in my newly purchased living-in van. The previous night I had crossed the border and I woke, parked along side a mountain torrent, southern slopes of the Pyrenees. I put the kettle onto the gas stove for a future cup of tea and then stepped out for an early morning explore. Locked myself out, keys inside, everything at the mercy of the kettle that would shortly catch fire. Thank you for windows.

3. Late twenties, after midnight returning to my room in an abandoned nurse's home East London, where i rented workshop space in the ajacent converted hospital. A dark corridor and surprised by someone-surprised-to-see-me hiding in an unlit doorway. He left, i returned to alert the sleeping night watchman and was surprised again by he-who-was-surprised-by-me-but-was-no-longer and as i unlocked the entrance door he decided to attack.

My twenties weren't the best of times until the very end