Revolving Doors

This is not where my story was supposed to end. I have no idea what the names of the streets are but I know them by the flower shops and the cafés nestled between them. It feels like having a friend whose last name I cannot remember, but the conversation and the company are real. Bern and I understand each other that way.

He is sitting across from you on a black chair. “When I see you, I feel nothing,” he says monotonously. Dry branches twist around your ribcage. They pull and pull until it hurts. Your vision becomes blurry with tears. He does not reach for your hand. His eyes are opaque. You remember the short period of time when you had a father. He told you once that when buying fish, you must make sure that they are fresh. “You look at the eyes. If they’re not glossy, don’t buy them.” 

You remember three years ago when he proposed on the longest night of the year. He said that at this exact moment, there was a portal, an open door, through which one could begin a new life. He said he wanted to start that life with you. This person sitting in front of you, with dead fish eyes, is no longer your husband. Everything you are shrinks. You have not felt this small in years. You close your eyes and see a door for the first time. You hope this door will bring you somewhere where it does not hurt this much. Cherry wood door. Golden knob. You open it, and find yourself inside your grandma’s kitchen. She is smiling at you by the sink. Cold, black tile on the soles of your feet. You open your eyes. How did you end up here, in a country that is not yours, so unloved? 

The heart is a bone that breaks. If sadness left a physical mark on your body, everyone would see your jaw, your shins, your back, covered in dark bruises. The tide that carried the years that you were together swallows you at unexpected moments.  Some of the items you see floating in the water: 

1. The Mala he gave you in Pune. 

2. Incense sticks you used to burn when you meditated together.

3. Your wedding ring.

The door between your world and his world disconnected. You did not know that Phantom Limb Syndrome could apply to a body that was external to yours. For months, you would move around life, dragging his deflated presence around you like a sad balloon. 

Slowly, the flashbacks stopped stabbing you. You close your eyes. The glass door slides open in Mexico. Preschool. You want to keep playing with your grandma. She pushes you in the swings. Higher. You are not aware that you will not see her again. You relearned how to buy groceries for one. You learned that in Reinhard you can buy half a loaf of bread. You lost the love of your life. You feel exposed, as if the word unloved was written on your forehead. You keep opening doors.

Kindergarten. You open the green door to Miss Lili’s classroom. Your friends leave the low tables and come rushing to hug you. You open your eyes and remember your friends here in Switzerland. They perform CPR on your mushed-in heart. You stop writing his last name next to your name. 

The wooden floors smell like oranges. It is a small hotel in Dublin, and you feel at home. Rain knocks on the glass roof. Your mother goes back to Mexico. You stay in boarding school. You push open the red round door with the ivy around it. You are sitting with your friends at the dinner table, eating Banoffee pie. Flash forward to when you are seventeen. You live in Florida now. Remember the long tree branches almost touching the grass. The pink glare through your bedroom window. The smell of sunscreen. Blue Gatorade. Tennis practice. You open another door. You are attending college. You are waiting outside his office in the English Department. He says Eloise and you can come in. You promise him you will keep writing. Don’t you dare stop now. 

You open your eyes and begin to remember what it feels like to smile. Your heart still looks like a wrinkly Medjool date. You keep opening doors to remember who you are. You close your eyes. You get out of the tuk-tuk. Noise everywhere. Orange petals, white flowers on women’s heads. Strong smells of herbs and smoke, and something sour. You walk barefoot. Incense sticks are burning on metal trays. People are pushing past you. nodding their heads yes and no. You wash your hands and sit on the floor next to a man you do not know, yet will break your heart. You open the shutters and see the Balinese jungle. You feel older than the twenty-two years you have spent on this planet. You feel like rain, like wood, peaceful. You move slowly, hoping time will move slowly with you. 

I open my eyes. I hear the knobs turning. All the places where I have been happy burst open inside of me. A gust of wind sends pictures of the people I love dancing in my head. Saint Pete Beach with Abel. Sitting by the fireplace with my family. Making molotes with Flor at my mother’s house. I can hear my mother’s voice telling a story. I can see my grandpa in his swivel chair. I see a woman. She looks like me. Revolving doors continuously open. I smile, look up, and think of my grandma. I have been told that I have her smile. I keep walking, bringing a miniature world inside of me. At thirty years old, I am beginning to remember who I am. I turn right on Schanzenstrasse.

Written By Luna Brun