Open Door (The)

The Open Door

Shelly answered the light tap on her bedroom door with a sleep muffled
grunt. The
door slid open allowing a shaft of morning light to invite itself into
the still waking
bedroom.

Ricky stood there tousled with sleep. His fringe curtaining dark
epicanthic eyes,
while the rest of his hair, shocked by the realization that it was
morning again, rose in
gravity defying peaks. His blue striped PJ's hanging rumpled and
skewiff on the
scrawny young torso. He rubbed his eyes and shuffled over to Shelly's
bed for the
usual morning cuddle. He was seven years old and the world was proving
a hostile and
unfriendly place. They chatted for five minutes before embarking on the
days routines.
"Do I have to go to school today mum?"

"`Fraid so matey, you just stand up to them and it will be OK".

They had moved to this godforsaken backwater three months ago. The
child of mixed
race, born to a Chinese father and cursed with a broad scouse accent,
from living the
last five years on the fringes of Liverpool. The mother not meeting the
norm of
society.A little too loud. A little too brash. "Not quite *our* sort".
They were different
and therefore deserved the title of "Outcomers" that was used to
describe them. Little
matter that the child had been born in a hospital not fourteen miles
from the village.
That the mother had been raised just ten miles North of it.

Ricky had been bullied since his first day at the new school. She
seemed to spend half
of her life in conflict with them over her sons treatment. Day after
day the child came
home bruised and subdued. This had felt so briefly like coming home.
Now the search
for home continued.

They shared their usual breakfast. Ricky dawdled, Shelly nagged.
Eventually he was
ready shoes fastened, coat buttoned, rucksack attached to back. She
shuffled him still
complaining through the open door.

They walked through the school gates and another door stood open. The
main door
to the school. Children passed through it chattering to distracted
parents, another day
beginning. Formations of shiny shoes and faces, filing past into the
warm interior that
smelled faintly of disinfectant.

She gave him a hug and then pushed him forwards encouragingly. His
feet dragged
as he walked through the open door. He turned once to wave, and flash a
weak smile
and then was gone.

Here were more open doors. The office door, the car door, the hospital
door.

She sat interminable hours, watching the clock labouring to make each
revolution of
seconds turn into a minute. Each of those passing to eventually mark
the hours. The
hours seemed so long . Minutes moved so slow. The seconds didn't seem
to move at
all.

Knocked off a wall in the playground they said. Childish prank they
said. Brain
Damage. Shock. Trauma. They said. She watched the door opening and
closing as the
white coats bustled in and out. Only the ones in green mattered. Only
they could tell
her something she wanted to hear.

The open door is covered with a red velvet curtain. somebody sobs
audibly as Ricky
dressed in Mahogany glides through the last open door to the furnace
within.