What is hidden, intrigues. What is unseen, is imagined. What is not allowed, entices.
It was three in the morning and I was walking home in a light rain. The front wheel of my bicycle was mangled from a collision with a moving car that didn’t stop when I flipped over the hood. My feet were wet, my hands were bloody, my body ached. I didn’t think I’d see H____ again after the argument we’d had, and I regretted that already. I was thinking of falling asleep in a warm bath when I passed a dead-end alleyway I’d never noticed. There was a fire escape on the west and a series of trash cans on the east, and a small metal door jammed in a corner.
An orange light glowed from the half-open door, like there was a sunset tucked inside the building.
I kept walking. And for the rest of my life, I’ve always wondered what was inside that doorway. I’m an artist because I keep imagining the other side of that door, and in my writing and films my characters pass the door, return, are barred from entry, dream of what’s inside, strive to get there, and one way or another pass through.