George had a major problem opening his front door. He kept on walking into it like a sleep deprived zombie, smacking his face, slipping and falling as he tried to turn the handle. It got so bad he couldn’t leave his home, and he had to weave an elaborate web of lies to justify his odd behaviour. Once he told his boss he couldn’t go to work because his cleaner had burned all his clothes then fled to Canada. It was tragic; George loved his work and was one of the best mattress salesmen in the country, and being locked up like this was really killing his vibe.
He couldn’t invite his fancy woman over either. He told her he had a rare strain of COVID that left him babbling algebra and pigeon English. He said there was no way he’d let her catch it. Not on his watch. It was madness—if only he could just pass through a simple swinging slab of rectangular wood.
After weeks of being trapped, he was on the verge of despair. He was using strips of wallpaper to wipe his arse, and living off cat food—which wasn’t nearly as tasty as it looked. But things got even worse when everyone he knew gathered on his front porch.
His boss sulked, “I always thought you’d go far, maybe sell a dozen futons in a calendar year. Now I’m not so sure.”
George’s fancy woman just wept, claimed she was six months pregnant while swigging from a bottle of Blue Nun, and retching into a plant pot.
“Why are you doing this to me?” she groaned, “Jeez, I’ll stop sleeping with your friends, okay.”
“I admit it,” George whispered through the letterbox, “I don’t like what’s on the other side of this door. And I don’t like any of you, either!” George exploded.
Stung by his hateful comment, his friends, family, and colleagues rapped on his door.
“We are going to knock down this door!” they raged, “and integrate you back into the fabric of society!”
George retreated to the kitchen and picked out the last can of minestrone soup from the cupboard. It was a special treat for a trying time. He opened the microwave door. Even this felt challenging. The soup was congealed, murky, and long past its sell-by date. He savoured its funky goodness, and considered escaping through the cat flap. It wasn’t exactly a door, more of a window maybe, who knows, but anyway, George was in no position to be fussy, especially as the soup was beginning to shrivel his guts, and the front door was caving in like a crushed skull.
Tim Frank’s work has been published in Okay Donkey, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Maudlin House, Hobart, The Forge Literary Magazine, New World Writing and elsewhere. He has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and 4x Best of the Net.
Twitter: @TimFrankquill
Author website https://linktr.ee/TimFrank
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