the interior

 

I would walk past the string shop often
It was situated along a strip of businesses on a busy street
And I often would stop into the other shops
The bookstore that sold overpriced out-of-print vintages,
An unassuming café, a small bank, a laundromat
It was not until one afternoon
I found a circle of string
Red yarn, dusted with the grime from the floor
On the ground
And I looked up after having picked it up
At the tiny storefront
‘Stringer’s Strings’
I decided, with lots of time and no obligations,
To go in.

The door opened with a groan,
Like one in an old horror movie
And the place was filled with strings
And yarns and lace and threads and things
On every wooden shelf and cabinet
Every color and every texture and length and width
Varying price tags scrawled in pencil on small paper tabs
The sunlight from outside fell through the windows

The place felt ancient
And to my surprise at the counter
Nobody was there, but for a small orange cat,
Asleep in a sunbeam
And I look over the counter, the old manual cash register,
And see a small note on the veneer
It is a diagram on a new piece of paper
Carefully drawn, it displays instructions

“Door”
1.’Take a loop of string and follow the steps below’
I take my string loop
And follow each step
And after failing to complete the shape a few times
I wrangle the loop into submission
Into a rectangle crisscrossed
With a diagonal pattern
And I hold it up in the light to inspect my work
And to my surprise
The wall behind the counter falls away to reveal
A large cherrywood door
With diagonal crisscross pattern
And through the door, a vast cityscape comes into view
And the orange tabby awakens, and looks up at me,
Purrs, then hops down to the floor,
And walks through the door,
Glancing back at me
And I follow