The Door That Mocked

He stares at the door relentlessly with his piercing French relentless stare.  The door, as if mocking him stands very still and calm.  He puts his right leg back slightly and digs his toes into the ground.  The door continues it’s mocking.  Finally with an exploding leap he bounds towards the door, which by now is a little bored of mocking him and just stands there waiting for impact, and the impact comes with a loud thump and a crack, dust flies into the air, birds scatter and a stray chicken decides that this is the right time to pack up it’s things and leave the area, forgetting only an egg on the pavement.  The dust settles and nature gathers itself together once more and left in the middle of the small street in agony,  Jean-Philippe sits and the door mocks him once more, “Perhaps ziss eees not a goood day to be Frrrrench!”  He thinks to himself between the spasms of pain in his shoulder.
    For three days he has been trying to break down that door, for three days he has been eating cheese croissants and drinking red wine to gain strength and numb the pain for the next battle against the door, for three days he has been wishing that he hadn’t lost his keys.  For three days he had been staying with his lunatic neighbour who ate nothing but bird-seed and strange little insects he gathered from the country-side on his weekend adventures.  For three days he has been wondering, “Why?!?”

    “Wow!”  Claire-Bear exclaims looking out of the window, “Look how massive the Eiffel Tower is.”
“It’s amazing isn’t it?”  Justin replies.
She turns to him and sees him sitting on the end of the bed in his hotel room, getting very frustrated with his bag.  The walls a pale yellow with one painting of the Eiffel Tower above the bed, despite the view from the window.  Behind this painting was a small hollowing that used to be home to a small bird, but now lies barren waiting for the little resident to return, only a small family of bird-lice are left as a reminder that he was ever there.  The bed is a little rickety and creeks when sat on, or in fact, even when sat near and the sheets matched the colour of the wall perfectly, the bottom corner though, slightly lifted by a gentle breeze coming through the window which is jammed open.  Justin, a tall and slender man was sitting on the end of this rickety, creaking bed trying hopelessly to remember the combination of his lock to open his bag.   
“Claire-Bear!”  He said in frustration, “Do you have anything that will open this lock or perhaps even break it?”
“No,” she replied, “But on the corner of the street I saw a small hardware store, I will go and see if they have something that can help.”  
    With that, she kissed him and left.  Justin continued his efforts to remove the lock eventually giving up, and having no clothes that didn’t smell like animal sweat, he rolled over and creaked his way to dreamland waiting for Claire-Bear to return with a plan.

    Finally the thought popped into his head.  After three days of continuous mocking by the door and extreme pain in his shoulder Jean-Philippe finally thinks it.  He summed up all his strength,  peeled himself off the street and limped his way to the street corner shop.   “A Hammer!”  Why didn’t he think of it before?  He would simply buy a hammer and smash the door lock into oblivion then replace the lock.  Simple.   The door now began to worry slightly and ceased it’s mocking.
    The bell that guarded the door to the shop, noticed him edging the door open and proudly announced his arrival to the customers and the store owner who lazily turned his head, like an owl slowly scanning the horizon for a rat disobeying curfew, and lifted his eyebrows in a form of greeting.  He was a fat man with a bold moustache that resembled the furry end of a broom with a tomato-shaped nose peaking over the top. His hair was thin, slightly curly and greased back and looked as if some of it was even drawn on his scalp with a pen.  He was sweating, he was always sweating, it was his body’s way of trying to rid itself of the contents he packed into it each day.  The smell in the shop emphasized the fact that he was sweating.
    Jean-Philippe lifted his finger and poised to ask the question that would end his misery and allow him to resume his normal life, the fat store owner turned to face him, eyebrows lifted and mouth slightly open waiting for the information to hit him so he could process it and return with a definitive answer, but from behind them the bell proudly announced yet another customer entering the store.  Jean-Philippe spun around on his heels and froze as she walked in.  Their eyes met.   Time seemed to freeze and everything around them stopped.  His finger still lifted, a new question found it’s way to his lips and started it’s slow journey out.


To Be Continued...

The Introduction

He gently raises his delicate glass of robust red wine to his pursed lips and sucks a little into his mouth letting it wash around and release it’s timeless flavours on his tongue, he thinks to himself about life and the way it has turned out for him,  as he remembers that fateful day when he lost his keys.  He takes a bite of his cheese croissant.  “Ah!” he thinks, “It is a gooood day to be Frrrench.”  For some reason unbeknownst to him, he has a good feeling that something good will happen to him – like the day that two particles of unknown matter and majesty collided together after journeying perilously through time and space to create a tiny planet which would come to be inhabited by many species, the most successful and youngest of which, the human race, from which would spawn Jean-Philippe and through his life he would take many turns and paths and each time he would wonder if it was the right way to go, not realising, of course, that they would all add together and lead him straight to this point now, with his good feeling and the taste of cheese and red wine fighting for the love of his tongue.

    Behind him the Eiffel Tower sits proudly dominant over the horizon and anything else that wishes to challenge it’s dominating dominance.  At this moment a small bird is releasing from his nether regions, in mid-flight, the breakfast of small French insects, some French bird-seed and a set of two keys, which it ate the day before in a binging exercise that was brought on from not eating for six days.  

The insects were left feeling extremely confused as to their specific location, coming from a very dark, wet and sticky environment to now feeling the wind in their “feelers” and a burning sensation in their eyes which became worse as they have no eyelids and cannot blink to alleviate the burning.
    The bird-seed fell for approximately ten seconds before deciding to each go their separate ways (which were quite a few considering how much the bird ate during his binge) and the keys decided that straight down and as fast as possible was the best option for the fall and carried it through with perfection.  Unfortunately for the keys though, their plan was hindered by a low-flying aircraft hurtling towards it’s destination, desperate to stop and rid itself of it’s massive load.  Highly upset by this inconsiderate interruption of their course, the keys bounced off the windshield and found themselves stuck on a bolt attached to the EMERGENCY DOOR.  They could not move and decided rather to hitch a ride on this inconsiderate contraption until such time as another plan could be made.
    The bird could later be found falling from the sky after dyeing from a heart attack which was brought on by a serious case of indigestion caused by his massive breakfast binge the day before.  His body though, found it’s final resting place, albeit slightly flatter, in a field where it was discovered by some falling bird-seed which set up camp and later grew a vineyard that produced grapes which, by a total accident, were discovered to produce the best red wine France and the world had ever tasted.

    The captain of the inconsiderate aircraft which so disgustingly interrupted the falling dance of some very disgruntled keys, projected his voice into the in-flight communications system and announced their arrival and explained that upon departure of the aircraft, red wine, a cheese croissant and love letters (as this was the world capital of love) would be distributed to all passengers to welcome them finally, to France.  One of these passengers left eye was interrupted from taking in her surroundings by something shining on the tarmac, she bends over to pick up the shiny object and upon closer inspection realises she has found a set of two (now very agitated) keys.  “Claire-Bear,”  asks her mother, “What have you got there?”
“A set of keys,” she replies putting the keys in her pocket, “It must be my lucky day...”



Continued next week...