Lost & Found: Behind Closed Doors

OK, so I have this whole clever little book of writing prompts that I received from my lovely friend Jane. It’s like a 2x2x2 cube of heavy paper pages and it’s called “The Writer’s Block.” Rather brilliant, but I’ve not put myself to the test with it.

"Crypt Door" by Susurra Fonseca

Now, with my recent bout of writer’s block, I sought inspiration in a random photograph. I mean, I dig artistic photos, detail, that kind of thing. So when my friend Susurra posted on Facebook a photo she’d made of a crypt door in the oldest cemetery in New Orleans and later posted a comment sans photo, I was inspired to let the art coax my words.

Susurra wrote: “I saw this old door, rich with its colors, layers and textures, and I wondered, ‘If it could talk, what stories would it tell?’ Even in its rusty silence, it plainly spoke out.”

I asked her for some detail about the image, as a bit of a guide beyond the basic prompt provided by her contemplation above. She provided this:

“Crypt door in New Orleans, Saint Louis Cemetery#1. The oldest cemetery in New Orleans, St Louis #1, founded in 1789 and rich with history. The crypt (all are above ground crypts in the cemetery) was in one of the oldest sections and is probably around 200 years old. It was unmarked, or possibly had been at one time but no longer was. Eroded and stained with the colors of time and history.”

By the time she replied I had decided that really I didn’t need details. That’s the point of the exercise. Here’s a photo of a rusty, paint-encrusted, metal door. Write.

Allow me to blur the lines. Let me blend the two, the known and the unknown.

So, crypt door? First thought: They’ve got no stories to tell. What do they experience? Open for a casket, close when the morticians depart. OK, I’m being persnickety. The point being, I think Susurra was hinting at the stories of the dead entombed behind that door. But I was being literal. What would the door know of the stories of the dead? That is, assuming the dead didn’t converse with the door during their eternal repose.

But my criticism assumes a certain finality of death for those left behind. And we all know that isn’t true. Isn’t that why we carry on the traditional death and burial customs we do? Preservation of the body, whether six feet under or in a crypt above or below ground, is an archaic custom that betrays our faith in Christian resurrection. It says, the physical presence is what matters, so I need to save it for the afterlife. How very ancient Egyptian. So pharaohic.

So I looked not beyond, but rather into the western funeral custom: preservation of the body. We can’t let go. So what stories would that door tell?

Midnight Toast

Henri arrived Friday night about 11. He was staggering, disheveled, and bore in his hands a bottle of cognac and two round glasses on short stems. Gathering his composure, Henri made a flourish and swirled half-way around to put his back to me, leaving his legs crossed at the ankles. In one deft move he squatted to crossed legs and laid the bottle and glasses before him. The glass crinched as it settled on the gritty stone step. Henri pulled the cork on the bottle of Hennessey and filled the glasses to two fingers.

Henri raised first the right glass, his own, and began to recite.

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;
And this, alas! is more than we would do.

Quaffing the first glass in one gulp, he continued.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed…

He faltered, his voice cracking. The words were lost. So much for that sophomore intro to Brit lit. It was in Swanson’s English 211 that he discovered John Donne and fell for Emily at the same time. She was his everything: petite, blonde, brilliant, dry wit, coquettish. God, he was such a sucker.

But some guys can’t help falling. He finally mustered the courage to ask her to study one weekend before the midterm, and he never regretted it. Not that anything came of their one study date. They pretty much sat in silence for an hour and a half in the library, poring over their English literature anthologies. Only occasionally did one ask the other for guidance.

“What the hell is ‘maidenhead’?” he wondered.

“What the hell does a flea have to do with anything?” she scoffed.

“I know. Who in the hell reads this shit, let alone understands it?”

That was about the extent of their “relationship.” Six months later she was gone. Killed in a classic college DUI – not her fault – and he was momentarily distraught. After a brief reverie of his unrequited love, he realized it was all nothing, an infatuation, a tragic conclusion to a meaningless college crush.

Five years later, however, he found himself buying a bottle of cognac, guzzling half of it in his '78 Thunderbird and tottering toward her tomb in a historic New Orleans cemetery.

Having quaffed his libation, he turned to hers. It was gone in a gulp. It became his coup de grace. There was nothing left. Man’s got to know his limitations. But love, especially unrequited love, blinds a man. There goes rational thought.

Today’s Stats (Saturday, Nov. 9, 2013)

Temp: 49 degrees F

Distance: 4 miles

Weekly Total: 8.05

Treasure: Nada- wasn't looking.

iPod Playlist (Shuffle)

You’re Only Human (Second Wind) – Billy Joel

Round Here – Counting Crows

Only Wanna Be With You – Counting Crows

Falling Slowly – Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova

Two Steps Behind (Acoustic) – Def Leppard

Too Many Tears – The Call