Ruby Rose
Location: Canadian Prairies
"The Doors"
by Ruby Rose
by Ruby Rose
Ruby--a precious jewel--or so she was led to believe--was a middle-aged woman with a daguerreotype of pain etched on her face by a long and slow exposure to a bad marriage. She had recently been abandoned by her husband of many years for a younger woman. Ruby was presently indulging in various temporary forms of employment until she found herself a new niche and hopefully a new lease on life.
Ruby answered a rather small and inconspicuous advertisement she noted in the classified section of her morning newspaper, requesting the services of a "temporary compliant house sitter". Immediately, by return mail, an envelope was dropped in her mailbox with her instructions. Her services were required for five days only during which time she was to go to the address indicated, which was walking distance from where she lived. There were also five keys in the envelope. Her instructions were not complex. There were five doors to close--a different one for each day. She had merely to locate it, close it and lock it firmly with the appropriate key. She also had to check that the mail had been duly brought in by the letter-carrier. It was stressed that she was not to touch anything, anywhere, under any circumstances, but the doors.
She located the house which she found to be seemingly standing apart...poised on perhaps a different dimension...that had come adrift from time or space. It was a bungalow, non-descriptive in design, except for the windows, which weren't really windows at all, as we know them. They were reminiscent of the earliest known windows discovered in the dwellings of an unearthed Ancient Scandinavian village, which were small apertures, referred to as "wind eyes", piercing the thick walls of houses, through which people could look out and through which fresh air and sunlight could come into their homes. Wind eyes were considered symbolic, as it was a tentative action towards communication and peace. One could see out but others could not see in. But why here...in this insignificant city of many? Ruby pondered, Unless perhaps the owners of this house were possibly hiding from a world unknown to them! Fearful of the shifting mirages of her own imagination, Ruby said to herself, "It is none of my business. A job is a job and I sure do need the money."
Entering the house, which proved to be unlocked, Ruby found that it was illuminated by an unusual lighting system--not lighting in any conventional sense, but more like aurora--a fulvous light--a soothing afterglow--but from what? There were no light fixtures anywhere to be seen. Could the wind eyes produce such a luminous light? Ruby started to wonder about the inhabitants of such an abode. How did they see in the evenings? Surely, as the darkness encroached, such lighting could only take on a velvety purplish hue.
With eyes darting everywhere, she noticed that the house was outfitted with exotic furnishings, from worlds unknown to her. She felt as if she had entered the house of kingly people...but from where? Looking around, but remembering her very explicit instructions not to touch anything, she observed that there were no photographs and nothing personal to indicate a semblance of ordinary people. There was an overwhelming stillness in the house and yet...you could sense an omnipresence; but there was no one there but her, or so she believed. Seeing that the last few years of her marriage consisted of a deafening silence that permeated throughout the house, bouncing off the ceiling, the walls--everything and everywhere--Ruby was not duly alarmed at the familiarity. Ruby also noted that there was a complete inodorousness throughout. Did anyone...really live here? she wondered. Ruby gave herself a shake and said to the seemingly empty house, "Enough already; my imagination sure is working overtime." And then she applied herself to what she was instructed to do.
On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Ruby located the doors in question, as well as the mail which had been placed on a different surface every day. Friday, her final day of house sitting arrived and Ruby once more stood at the door of the bungalow. Suddenly, as she opened the door, her husband, Alexander--with a giggly young woman in tow that could only be Susie his new lover--was behind her, talking to her.
"We have to talk."
Ruby quickly explained, "No, stop, not here. I'm doing a job. Call me later and we'll decide on a time and place."
Heedless of her words, they traipsed in behind her. To her horror, as she relayed the rules to them, Susie ran here and there and everywhere...touching, touching and touching simply everything! What could Ruby do or say to make them leave? The thought crossed Ruby's mind that, though unseeing, they were themselves seen. Ruby's heart seemed to implode, sending reverberations from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. Suddenly, at the end of the hall, a luminous door appeared and opened to reveal an unusually long fire escape. Looking out the door, one could see and hear an agglomeration of people of all ages, of all kinds--the sonorous wash of voices contradicting the aphonic atmosphere within the household. The people seemed to burble together like the confluence of waters no longer streaming underground. Susie drifted towards the opening, akin to a moth rushing to a bright light, and ran down the fire escape, impervious to the persuasive pleas of Alexander and Ruby for her to stop. Alexander, oblivious to entering the unknown, ran down after her, reaching the bottom of the seemingly endless fire escape to see and hear Susie stop as her eyes were drawn upward to an unfamiliar sky consisting of coloured flashes--a borealis of patterns rising and setting before her very eyes. Susie then felt as if her whole body was haemorrhaging with fear. She felt that her airspace was invaded; she could not breathe properly. Realizing that she was no longer in control of herself, Susie immediately tried to cry out over her shoulder to Alexander, "Okay, you win, I'm coming back," but it was not a clamorous voice that rendered the air. More of a hoarse whimper, of fear. Suddenly in the same breath, another door, also surrounded by a strange light, opened in front of her. Just as Alexander almost reached her, two shimmering beings--a male and a female species with an aura emanating from their bodies, in slow motion gathered Susie up and disappeared into a vacuous space...somewhere! Alexander decided to run after them through the door, which unbeknownst to him, softly closed behind him and disappeared as if it had never been.
There was no concern on Ruby's part. She felt as weightless as a bird with aerial superiority when she witnessed the unnatural phenomenon below. She was free! Ruby, motionless at the top of the fire escape, then turned, and winged her way back into the house...as the door behind her changed once more into an impenetrable wall. She retraced her steps and being ever so diligent to the rules, she located the mail, then walked purposely if not somewhat bewilderedly to the front door. Stepping out of the house, she then used the fifth and final key, locking the door firmly behind her. As per her instructions, she placed the envelope of keys in the mailbox where she located her very handsome fee. As she walked home, it suddenly dawned on her that the house had not been situated on a hill to justify such a fire escape. In fact, she didn't ever recall seeing such a house on that familiar street. Turning slowly around, she noticed that the house was now gone without a trace. The faces which Ruby had stared into as well as what she witnessed, were forever to remain an enigma. With a renewed lift to her feet, remembering too fleetingly to specify, she walked on with breathless and unequivocal words--
"Just me," --and thoughts of a possibly new and better life ahead of her. Justice done, perhaps...but by whom?