I’ve always been intrigued by closed doors and unseen places. Once when I was, I think six or seven, I was at the dentist’s office. It wasn’t time for my appointment yet so I was sitting in the waiting room and, bored out of my skull, I decided to go exploring. There was an unmarked door at the end of a hallway so I opened it. Inside was a dental assistant developing a batch of X-rays. In those days X-rays, like other photographs, had to be developed in a darkroom. Do you know what happens when you open the door of a darkroom while the X-rays are in the process of being developed? Your mom has to pay for them and you don’t get ice cream on the way home.
I’ve learned to be a bit more cautious since then so I wouldn’t have opened the door of the Secret Room even if I could figure out how to open it, no matter how much I’d really, really, really like to know what secrets it holds.
Actually that door is at the back of the Darkhorse Theater. I’ve been in the theater but the Secret Room is in the very back where I haven’t been. It’s probably just the loading area where they bring in large pieces of scenery and other props—nothing exciting, but, to me, the backstage areas of theaters are the most intriguing places of all.
It occurs to me, too, that I have a friend who’s performed in several plays there. Maybe he could let me in on the secret.
Chris, I can relate and so can our cats.
I can relate to your cats too. Someone in my writing group last week reminded me of these classic T.S. Eliot lines:
The Rum Tum Tugger is a terrible bore:
When you let him in, then he wants to be out;
He’s always on the wrong side of every door…
Ah, me too–you know I obsess about finding a secret room in a house. I still remember going to an office building and seeing a door that said Room of Requirement. Sadly, it was locked. Later, I found out it was the janitorial closet. But maybe that’s because it was what THE JANITOR required. Now if I’d opened the door…
I’d like to know what the janitor required. Are a janitor’s requirements different from those of other people? Perhaps there’d be something useful in there. In fact in my office building the janitor’s room is sometimes open and when it is I always look in. I’d never take anything without permission but I am just curious.
The doors are portals and symbols for those with big imaginations aka YOU
Ah, you have quite a big imagination too, Bill, and now I feel slightly guilty for having, er, shown you the door, even if it wasn’t meant in that way.