NEEDLING

1

I lived in a big house not far from my parents. How I accepted to live there is not known to me, but there I was, and more or less happy. Unbeknownst to me, in my front yard was a large opening which I noticed one day while coming out my front door. I walked over to check it out and lord oh mine it was a large hole somewhat like a garage door or rather more like the window of a military silo, like the ones you see on the Normandy beaches but much bigger, big enough for a car to come through if it wasn’t the roof. All around was my garden. There underneath was a large room. Next to the garage-like window was a staircase going downwards into this large room. A door at the top, also opened. The whole thing looking as casual as could be. In the heat of summer, late afternoon a cool breeze is unusually blowing through, and they’re simply trying to catch a bit of it. This being bizarre enough, what was really shocking is that down there was my old high school band-room, the very same room I’d spent more than one hour per day, sometimes several hours a day, practicing in the high school symphonic orchestra or the high school marching band. Squatting on the ground trying to get a better look inside, I felt as if I was doing something wrong, looking into a place I had no business looking into, getting a sneak look at my past, or at what my past once held, because there underneath me was not my past, it was the band room I once spent much time in, but I wasn’t in there so to say looking back up at myself, I wasn’t anywhere to be seen; underneath my feet was a world I no longer belonged to, to which I no longer had the key, a world I was no longer invited to have any say in, and this is why I felt awkward looking down. There were a few kids in there listening to the band director, which sounded as if it might still Mr. Franklin. I could only see the double door entrance right under me to my left, and part of the instrument storing area as well as a few chairs from the back rows of the orchestra sitting arrangements. I couldn’t make out any of the kids, though I could hear some activity. This must have been the end of the lesson for the day. Most of the kids had obviously all ready gone home. Mr. Franklin was giving some pointers to a few remaining kids. I squatted down as much as possible, held on to some metal bar, and peered down a little more when I noticed a young girl facing the band director, meaning facing away from me. As if on cue, she turned around and looked up at me, giving me that teenage look of “what the fuck” and I jumped up, caught red-handed, I walked back to my front door all shook up. The one main thought on my mind being: My god, they’re going to make a hell of a racket when the practicing starts up again, how the hell am I going to live with that?!

2

On the way back to my front door, I crossed a man who had obviously been watching me the whole time. I turned red, felt ashamed, and did not know quite what to say. He wore some blue working clothes, like a janitor.

“Are you the custodian?” I asked.
“No, I am not,” he responded calmly.
“Are you the groundskeeper, then?”
“No, I am not,” he answered again in a very calm voice which unnerved me even more.
“Then who are you? And what are you doing in my garden?”
“I watch over the door.”
“Oh...” I had nothing to say to that, “I’ve never noticed it until today.”
“I know,” he said and looked at me for a few very uncomfortable seconds. Then he lit a cigarette and walked away. At that point I decided he looked very much like Humphrey Bogart. I watched him till he disappeared into the darkness, because the day had ended and it was now nighttime.

I turned around and headed back to my house. I opened the door, turned the lights on, and entered. All was very silent, grizzly almost like a lonely winter evening somewhere in Maine. A chill ran down my spine as I shut the door behind me.