The Secret Door

There was forest. For as far as the eye could see there were trees, great trees, that stretched up higher than any building you'd ever seen. And the air was close around us and very humid. If I had been alone I'd have insisted that it was a dream but of course I wasn't alone, Mildred was there with me and she saw it too - the great fronds hanging low above us and the dense vegetation that seemed to shut us in. At first we did not notice the condition of the ground upon which we tread. We were completely overwhelmed. Like I said we were at Heathrow one moment and in this strange other-world the next. The ground gave way beneath our feet as if we'd stood upon a mattress, and there was an odor, a fecund and earthy reek, the way it smells sometimes in the potting shack where Mildred stores her bulbs. You see there was a certain door and it was marked Secret. We thought it was the frequent travelers' lounge. We're not frequent travelers as you can tell, but I'd heard of such places and thought we'd have a look. We meant no harm in it. It was really quite innocent. The secret door led into a dark corridor that seemed to descend to a level lower than the tarmac itself and soon we were in total darkness and we turned back around, or thought we did, only to emerge there, in that place, where nothing made sense. We looked at each other for a long while before someone spoke and it was Mildred who managed to get the first word out and all she could say was John. John. John. In a sort of helpless, childlike manner as if she had just smashed her mother's favorite vase. What could I tell her? I didn't know anything. My feet were sinking in the ground and I felt very vulnerable, very afraid, and I don't mind saying it. This was not a right forest, if a forest it was, and forget about the fact, the, the inarguable fact that we were at Heathrow only moments before. I am sure of it. I could lay out that morning in exhaustive detail. I remember it, dammit. I remember it. It doesn't matter now. Because we were lost. We were lost and the situation was very dangerous because I soon gathered that we were, relative to everything around us, very, very small. Like in the novel by Jonathan Swift. We had stepped into a different place, a different time. I don't know how. I don't know how it is possible but I know it as fact. I am a man of facts. I know what I see and I know what I know. I was there. There was a large forest and we were small in it. Ask Mildred, ask her. She'll tell you. I am sure of it all as I am of speaking to you right now.

o O o