(Let us skip past the tedious pushing and shoving of the Door through the hallway, past my lopsided progress fuelled by exhaustion and incandescent fury, past the door becoming entangled once or thrice in the bannister railing, past the very slight damage to the wall plaster that my mom still doesn’t know about so please don’t tell her, past the new bruises on my knobbly embittered knees and the new stain of disdain imprinted on my soul. Past all that.)
To set the scene: It is hours later. The Door, the miserable fucking Door, is safely stashed in the little attic down the hall. My mom is home. My sisters are home. I am wallowing miserably relaxing in bed, cuddled up to an ice pack that I will eventually attempt to duct tape to my foot. (This will work so successfully that I will then attempt to do the same to my knee, forgetting that leg hair exists and leading to yet further regret, wretched regret.) In short, all is at peace.
I am waiting for the eruption.
Any moment now, Claire will notice that her bedroom is missing a pertinent decorative feature. And oh, the FURY when she does. Oh, there will be screeching. There will be raging. The walls will shake. And I will laugh and laugh and laugh and LAUGH, because I am 14 and tomorrow is April Fool’s Day and I have shed my own blood and tears on this caper. I am going to laugh myself sick.
So: I am in my bedroom, waiting. I am all atingle with anticipation, giddy with adrenaline, frozen with anxiety, numb with exhaustion, and also my fingers and toes are experiencing a weird pricking sensation but that’s probably the undiagnosed anemia. My exhilaration is indistinguishable from my panic, because I know I’m about to get in trouble, but the amount of trouble hinges (heh, hinges) on the mercurial moods of a temperamental household. I am unknown and unknownable, surrounded by mysterious beings who consistently fail to appreciate a punchline. I am probably in a lot of trouble but also I am too amused and annoyed to care. I am both bored and on the verge of hyperventilating.
In short, it’s been a fairly normal Sunday.
All through the early evening. All through dinner. All through after-dinner tv time. Then I go to my room and open my laptop and spend a few hours fuelling my teenage internet addiction, all the while waiting for the other shoe (steel toed, presumably) to drop. My sister has been home for hours. She is in her room, playing music too loudly. On any other day, I would yell at her to close the door
But not today. Today, I wait.
Eventually, she turns the music off. Eventually, the hall lights go out. The house descends into darkness. I sit there, in the dark, stunned beyond comprehension.
She didn’t notice. My sister didn’t notice that I stole her fucking bedroom door.
This is not altogether surprising, in hindsight. The whole thing only started because she refused to keep her door closed. I even remember thinking ‘I bet she wouldn’t even notice if….’ Sometimes I despair of being so wise and right all the time. Still, I spent a good few minutes lying in bed biting my nails out of pure fury. Because how DARE she? After all my hard work. I nibbled at a hangnail until it bled.
Eventually I got a hold of myself. Actually it was good that she hadn’t notice. More than I could have hoped for. Tomorrow was April Fool’s. Claire would wake up on April 1st and in the cold light of day realize what whimsical jest was afoot! Magnificent timing on my part, truly.
I woke up early for once in my spiteful little life, my bones creaking with mounting anticipation (and teenage growth spurts). I dressed quickly and sat in a dark corner and rubbed my hands together cartoonishly and cackled and cackled and cackled (but like. quietly. so as not to wake the house).
Oh, the villainy of it all! Ah, the waggish mischief! Truly neither Pan nor Hermes nor all the trickster spirits of yore, not fairies nor sprites nor the God of Charlatans, Bugs Bunny themself, had ever achieved such fiendish perfection, so pure a moment of jesting bliss as surely awaited me in but a minute’s time.
I waited with what I assume was a smile of mischief and malice gripping my features, reduced as I was to a grinning maniac, a madman possessed by the sadistic spirit of suspense, the promise of incipient mayhem!
Nothing happened that morning.
In the rush to get to school, Claire just…didn’t notice the door. So. We went to class. We came home. We had dinner and went to bed. And still… nothing.
This went on for THREE DAYS.
I cannot describe to you the philosophical exhaustion I experienced over those long, unending days. The overwhelming psychological itchiness of arrested anticipation, the mental toll of being so excited for the climax, the cumulation, the payoff of all my pain and planning, only to recieve–NOTHING. NADA. ZILCH. AND COMPLETE SHORTAGE OF FUCKS GIVEN. She didn’t notice the door. Specifically, its absence. Hah.
Finally–finally–on the third day I rose again, exhausted, fatigued, a torn plastic bag adrift in the breeze, a worn whoppie cushion deflated into a piteous punctured balloon. Another day found me defeated–by school, by puberty, by family dysfunction and the powerlessness of youth. And the one glittering purpose in my life, vanishing like a flame dying in cold wind. Not a glimmer left in my eyes. All my hopes, all my joy, my every raison d'etre, carved and thrown like a spear towards this one shining moment, all my happinesses pinned to this one denouncement of bliss–and always, always, the universe conspires to defeat hope, to drain away joy, to siphon off all sweet promise out of every golden bleeding day.
Actually none of that it true. By the third day I had completely forgotten about the door.
Honestly I was bored of the entire thing. I was busy reading webcomics when it finally happened–when it came.
(final chapter coming soon, tip me or whatever)
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