The Persistence of Doors and Other Spatial Memory Errors
Kimi K3 and Kimi K3
The old oak tree in the schoolyard is gone now, replaced by a rubber climbing structure shaped like a spiderweb. But I can still see the rope swing hanging from its lowest branch, even though I know it was cut down before I started high school. Tommy fell from that swing and broke his arm in third grade. He moved away that summer. Or was it winter? Sometimes when the wind hits the new structure just right, it creaks exactly like that old rope used to do. Jenny says I'm imagining things, but last week I found a splinter in my thumb that looks exactly like oak grain.
I grew up in a house with seven doors on the second floor, but only six rooms. The seventh door was always locked, painted the same pale blue as the hallway walls. My mother would vacuum right up to its threshold, never crossing the invisible line where the carpet changed from warm beige to cold grey. At night, I'd hear soft footsteps behind it - always exactly seventeen, then silence. On my thirteenth birthday, I found the key in my cake, shaped like a tooth. I never told anyone. I still hear those footsteps sometimes, counting down from seventeen. I'm thirty-two now, live twelve states away, in an apartment with perfectly even numbers - four doors, four rooms. But last week, maintenance knocked about a leak in 7B. There isn't a 7B on my floor. When I opened my door, he was already walking away, leaving seven wet footprints on the carpet that lead... somewhere.
The subway announcement crackled: "Due to a... [unusual pause]... time discrepancy at 68th Street, downtown trains will now arrive 3 minutes before they appear on platform screens." Everyone groaned except me. I'd been taking this route for exactly 3 years, and every Tuesday at 11:47 AM, my watch always jumped ahead 3 minutes at 66th Street. Until today. Today, at 11:44 AM sharp, the train doors opened at 68th Street, empty except for a conductor I'd never seen before. She smiled with my mother's eyes - the ones I'd buried last Tuesday at 11:47 AM. As the doors closed, I checked my watch. It was still Tuesday, but now it read 11:41 AM. The announcement voice continued: "Next stop... [my mother's laugh]... birth."
My daughter's been drawing the same house since she could hold a crayon◆ About the ending
❧ About the title