Fandango’s February Expressions #26:
Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t
If he knocks, does she have to open the door?
Does she have to let him in, offer him tea and a seat near the living room window
next to the fireplace?
That’s her favorite place to sit, there are Jade plants in the window and the radio is in the corner. The radio has an eye on the center of it’s face. It closes when the radio signal is weak.
It hasn’t worked for ages, she wasn’t even sure people used radios anymore.
Focus she told herself. Focus!
She needed to decide and she needed to decide now because she was sure he was
going to knock on her door and that he was going to ask to come in and of course the
polite thing to do would be to offer him something warm to drink, it was so cold outside.
She went to the door, she flicked the light switch and the pale warm lights from the ceiling winked off and her wall papered walls ( faded gold birds flying towards the ceiling, sad they would never make it she thought when she looked at it ) and her furniture and paintings of lakes and flowers painted by long gone hands winked out too.
Of course she didn’t have to let him in, she doesn’t have to offer him something to drink
to take the chill out of his bones. She isn’t responsible for his comfort, for what he wants or feels.
She put her hand on the door, it was cool to the touch- or maybe it was just her. She was always cold. She was always worried about not doing the right thing. Her hand slid to the door knob and she turned it just as she heard the beginning of the knock that she dreaded would come.
Thump. Thu-
She turned the knob, she pulled open the door and the empty Night stood at her door politely, waiting to be invited in and offered tea and a seat next to the window with her Jade plants and the radio with the eye in the center of it’s face.
” Why do you always come here, why do you always come to me? ” Death asked the night.
The Night didn’t answer- it never did but she let it in like she always does and probably always will because sometimes when you are faced with darkness or you are darkness itself it’s better to choose to face it with someone you know then to face it with someone you don’t know at all.
Eternity is such a long time.
#FFE
