Corridors

Life is an endless hallway, with mostly wrong openings, mistakes and regrets. They all start off closed.

At some point, some open.

Wallowing around, studying the environment in awe and fascination, we run back into the hallway like it was a kind of game. Maybe the door will always remain open. Sometimes, the light above goes out, and the nearest door opens unexpectedly. The frame bulges and a great abyss swallows us whole. I am not sure if it is the lucky or unlucky ones that are spat back out. Eyes reopening, remembering that we were already nowhere, we place our trembling legs back on the floor and potter on.

One day it is possible that we arrive at the right place at the right time, and sometimes even the handle turns with our hand. During this period, the hallway seems to make sense. Nothing is particularly different from the other rooms, yet leaving this one is out of the question. Time passes quickly, much quicker than before. At first, one risks all to prevent the emergence into that coercing corridor.

All the cards are dealt, and one wins the joker. This has no role on whoever wins the largest portion of doubt. It seeps in and stays, but can be managed. Luck is crucial. Cards appear that aren’t always dealt, and certainly aren’t always played. The risk was taken: the game unravels accordingly. For many of us, in time, and after all the fruitless searches, we lose the glimmer in our eyes: the tenderness of our touch. The light in the hallway appears pale, a faintness of blue that seems to be all that penetrates our gaze. At this moment, many portals close, to never reappear.

We understand and learn complacency, or not, which sometimes provokes actions that one never desired, that one never thought possible. The narrow corridor never felt so restraining. Hands clutch throats, gasping for air, bulbous eyes that scour for an exit, even an end. We fall in and out of some doors that fling open, and we force our way into those opened merely a jar. Maybe we forced the door to always remain open.

What is certain is what awaits all of us: towards the end, the light is so dim that we hardly notice a thing.

Turning all the handles: they don’t open any more. In the night we toss and we turn. We might share the bed, but we certainly don’t share the same thoughts. Herein the battle commences between pride and regret. The former forms our despair, the latter later blocks us from sleep.

You reach the end of the corridor, where the door that was made for you has always been waiting.

It is this only door that will really take you home.