The Door Stayed Closed

For three days, I did not leave the apartment.

The arrangement was easier than it sounds. Bread came through the doorman, cigarettes came through the doorman, and the door stayed closed behind them. Once those two supply lines were working, the outside world had very little bargaining power.

I watched two seasons of one television series and another season and a half of a second. After enough episodes, the apartment stopped being measured by morning, afternoon, and evening. Time became simpler: one more episode, then another, then perhaps sleep.

Nothing dramatic happened inside. A cup stayed where I had left it. The window showed the same buildings. My body moved very little while the people on the screen fought, loved, betrayed each other, died, returned, and continued living at a speed that made my own weekend look almost motionless.

By the third evening, staying inside no longer felt like a decision. It had become the condition of the place. The strange part was not that I had nowhere to go; the door worked perfectly well. I had simply stopped requiring it.

Then Sunday night arrived and brought Monday with it.

I remember writing that I was not sure whether I would go to work the next day. It was not a resignation plan. It was the temporary logic of someone who had been absent from ordinary life long enough for work to sound like an activity practiced by other people.

Three days earlier, the apartment had been somewhere I returned to.

By the end, returning to the world seemed to require more effort.