communal living

Our bedroom door is a vestigial structure. It has lost all the original function of what a door is supposed to be. It has a lock which is like an appendix waiting to turn and be mechanically excised. I read where some people believe a bedroom door does in fact have a useful function, that being something about keeping the good within and the bad without, but there is nothing bad here, not within these walls. Perhaps they are confusing the bedroom door with the garage door, in the manner that we sometimes confuse a necktie for a noose, or a mirror for a looking glass.

Sometimes a tiny artist creeps into our bed after a long afternoon painting. Sometimes it is a stray dog, attracted to the scree of cookie crumbs from a bedmate trying so hard to chew quietly that it is all you can hear for days and days. Less often, it is a boy trapped within the body of a mountain, lumbering after answers to technical questions about improved wireless connection.

"Solid objects can sometimes interfere with the signal."

"Could you guys just leave the door open then?"

I can't remember ever seeing it otherwise.