The Coming

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One

You Knock.

There is no answer from beyond the first door.

You wait, shuffle your feet, taste only silence.

No-one is expecting you, then.

Perhaps tomorrow.

Two

You knock.

‘Knock, knock’. A voice comes, bizarrely, from the other side.

‘Who’s there?’ you reply.

‘Sue,’ he says.

‘Sue who?’

‘Soup of chestnut.’

The door opens.

‘There’s not much room,’ you say, stepping in. A closet, just. Dark, smelling of truffles.

‘I can add them if you like,’ the voice says. ‘There. Chestnut and mushroom soup.’

The rim of a white bowl glimmers, its contents matching the colour of the earth floor.

Three

‘Not tonight.’

‘I’m sorry?’ you say to the lion-looking man as wide as his closed door, a chain glinting somewhere near his waist.

He avoids eye contact. ‘Not tonight. Not for you. Away home to your bed now.’

The door drifts ajar, leaking a throbbing light, a musical beat, the smell of vanilla and sweat.

You peer past him. His arms fold across his chest; a human battering-ram. A backward thrust of his buttocks, and the door slams.

You’d rather not face him in the dark.

Four

It slinks open on well-oiled hinges. A black cat, coiled inside, opens one eye at you. Stretches. Releases scents of blackcurrant, gooseberry, a whiff of Sauvignon Blanc from his silken wrinkles before settling again, coiled and closed.

Five

The door is hewn stone; the clasped hinges rusty. It opens onto a cave. Flocks of fish are suspended in mid-air. Ah, no, mid-water.

A mermaid swims towards you, arms outstretched. In each hand she offers an open scallop shell. You close your eyes as the sweet sea-flesh melts on your tongue; salt, lime, cumin. When you open your eyes she has raised her hands above her head. She cocks her chin, and snaps her clam-shell castanets.

Best leave, before her singing begins.

Six

The door is a rough reddish brown, its panels trimmed with pale lines. The handle breaks off slightly stickily when you try to turn it. Almonds and sugar on your hand. You put your tongue to it. Marzipan.

With your face against the now unopenable door, you heave a breath. Gingerbread. You tear away a corner, crumbly and hot. Cinnamon, clove and lemon flood your mouth. Can you eat enough to discover what’s beyond?

Seven

A Moorish door. A sweetmeat inside for you. Minced apricots, dates, nuts perfumed with cinnamon and rosemary, cased in pastry. The smallest bite can transport you, swaying east under stars, over sand, on the back of a camel.

Eight

This one is padlocked, a board nailed across it. You have a sense of being locked out in a long corridor through which you are marking time, counting doors. There could be other visitors weaving along it from door to door; other travellers to collide with amongst shadows. Waiting for what?

Nine

A hexagonal-shaped door that’s vibrating. You open it and a hum grows as the hive awakens, murmuring of thyme and the Corsican maquis. The bees form a buzzing halo around your ears, asking for your secrets that they will fly to the gods. ‘Tell, mmm, tell…’

A drop of their honey captures the very throb of life; a reminder of the returning light; summer’s storehouse.

Ten

‘Open Sesame’, you say rather optimistically to the boulder. Obligingly it thunders aside, and there on a slab of slate lies the treasure: a single seed, pale golden, the size of a pinhead, that can be ground to a divine and earthy paste of nut and cream.

Eleven

‘You’ll have had your tea?’

You’re at a Morningside door with a knocker and a number ‘11’ of polished brass. The lady who has opened it wears a fur coat. You would like to correct her because you’re getting hungry now: ‘A wee sandwich, perhaps?’

But she’s already ushering you back out into the wind and rain.

Twelve

Dark lacquered wood, reminiscent of grandmothers’ rooms. Inside a wall of clothes swing mustily from hangers. They could be parted or crawled under to venture on into the darkness.

As your eyes adjust, something white and lozenge-shaped attracts you, dangling from a string. You expect the seduction of Turkish delight, succulent and sugar-coated. But this is hard and smells of camphor.
Thirteen

A steamy scent trickles through a crack in a wooden door studded with nails. Inside, an orange that’s been studded with Zanzibar cloves bobs in a pan of warming wine. But mulling is not for you. You don’t have time. You must step back as the door closes tight, ratt-tatting its nails.

Fourteen

A thimbleful from a gaudily painted handcart parked inside. A blast to your taste buds. Mango and chilli with sugar, salt and lime. Too rowdy. You slam the door shut again, your cheeks sucked hollow.

Fifteen

A simple table top awaits your visit here, and on it lies a curl of something pale green and white. Suddenly you are back with your head at table height, your mother tall and aproned next to you, paring skin from cooking apples, slicing the white flesh into a pie dish. You’re looking up at her, lips twisting with the sourness of the discarded, now browning skin against your smile.

Sixteen

‘Crumbs!’ the Joker says, from his carnivalesque door. You see that he speaks the truth when he hands you a plate. Wensleydale. Fruitcake. A crumb of each.

Seventeen

It’s not a room at all. This door gives onto an orchard at night, a full moon hung in the branches. Other fruits dangle too. In the warm air they are golden-scented with apple, pear, rose and honey. You stand with your head amongst the branches, trespassing briefly, stealing just one more breath amidst the quinces; food of the gods.

Eighteen

A hatch really , this one, a tiny closet in the wall. It’s dark inside, but warm, and something froths and bubbles there; rising from a bowl, sour and beery.

Nineteen

Steps leading down. A cellar. Storing the world’s oldest food additive. Flavours stick to it; it is our health and protection. Don’t spill it, mind. And never mention it at sea if you are fishing.

Twenty

A barn door of a thing this, ancient and weathered. An arc has been worked into the wood where the hooked latch has repeatedly swung against it in the wind. Nothing but a pallet inside, raised above rats, heaped with golden grain.

Twenty-one

No-one’s home here. Or are they? It’s as if a breath’s been taken. You sense preparation distantly, behind the door, or doors. Stirring and slicing. Voices together over pots. And the rhythmic heel of a warm hand thumping down on a board, smoothing something to satin and elastic, coaxing it upwards into life.

Twenty-two

Ajar, this one. A timber door painted Mediterranean blue, sun-peeled. You step into a room of yellow light, and there, shouting from a terracotta plate, black olives and salty anchovies. The sight explodes fireworks in your mouth, begs tomatoes. You’d welcome a soft cushion of dough on which to compose it all.

Twenty-three

A hand reaches out from behind the door, fingers like wintery twigs around a small jar of shiny black jam. It’s sharp and sweet on your dipping pinkie. Tasting of autumn hedges.

But something is missing.

A drink of tea for one thing.

Twenty- four

It’s darker than ever this near the end, so you could easily have missed the roughly gnawed arch in the skirting board that you must kneel to get your eye to. A delicate lace of paw prints has been sugar-frosted onto the floor. Inside, cardamom pods and cinnamon sticks are roughly piled over a white mound.

You hear light snoring. There is a dormouse guarding the hoard, sleeping on watch, waiting for a Scandinavian plaited bun to season and sweeten.

Outside his lair a steamy scent is gathering, announcing an arrival. The tiny nose twitches.

Twenty-five

All the other doors have opened inwards but this one swings towards you with a ‘whoomph’ of heat, blasting you back a couple of steps, scorching your eyelashes. Through a humid cloud, you see a shovel delve inside, lift something from a shelf and bring it out steaming. As the cloud thins, you find that the place is thronging. The black cat sashays towards you with its tail erect, mewing sweetly. The lionesque bouncer is rubbing his stomach, drawn away from his threshold. Your mother is there, and the lady in the fur coat. Castanets clatter, and the now very-much-awake dormouse makes a silvery streak along the skirting board.

A banqueting table is set with the loaf at its centre. A cross has been cut on its top where the devil was released. A miracle of starch and air, it steams hope and light into the shadowy corridor, sets off talk and laughter. It seems to be all you need. All of you. And you got here just in time.  Eat it while it’s still warm; you’re welcome.

by Linda Cracknell

http://lindacracknell.com