I walk back to my office building, having just returned from lunch. My building has two pairs of doors at the entrance, about 6 feet apart. As I open the outer door, I step inside and watch as another guy opens the inner door and steps outside. We both are now occupying the buffer zone between those two doors. This buffer zone is that part of the building that smells extraordinarily like a construction worker at the end of a particularly hot summer day. Our eyes meet, each sensing the other's uncertainty.
He holds the inner door open for me while I hold the outer door open for him. Both of us continue to hold our respective doors open. Beyond these doors lies freedom. But neither of us wants to let go of his own door before the other guy passes through. We both have impeccable manners, you see. The doors are too far apart for someone to hold both of them open at the same time. Someone has to let go first.
The situation is getting tense. It is a battle of etiquette. Who will be the first to blink? Who will relinquish his hold on the door and accept defeat, thus abandoning his obligation to uphold societal mores of decorous conduct? Time passes by as we mull over the perplexity of the situation. Finally, I nod at him, having arrived at a decision. He reads my mind and responds with grim acquiescence. We perform a wordless countdown, our muscles flexing in anticipation. The clock winds down. And then we leap.
The next few moments occur as if in slow motion. We each let go of our respective doors, fly past each other and grab the door the other was holding just before it slams shut. We screech to a halt and stare back at each other with triumphant grins. We've managed to make it through without either of us being shunned by society and having to bear the ignominous title of "He Who doesn't Keep Doors Open For Others".
"Good job", the guy says to me as he steps out of the building. "Thank you, you too", I respond as I walk to the staircase that will take me back to my hole in the wall. Both of us go our separate ways.
7 comments:
you should have made out with him in the corridor of uncertainity.
yeah, it could have been such a wonderful gay love story ...
quite like Ronald Dahl's "Night Train at Deoli" ...
He wasn't particularly good-looking. Also, I was hungry. And furthermore, I'm not gay. Not that there's anything wrong with it.
You should have shot the scene in time-freeze technique ala "The Matrix". A slowed dive, sweat droplets caught in mid-motion, sunglasses stoically in place.
Alternately, even though you're not gay, you could have given him the, "I don't know how to quit you" line.
You also could have said this to the door.
But you were returning from lunch. Was it to go?
robroy : That's exactly the way I imagined it to happen. I mean, that's exactly the way it happened. Everything except the gay part. Even though there's still nothing wrong with it.
anonymous. Of course. I always eat in my office which is what I call my hole in the wall.
Of being and nothingness in slow-mo. I'm glad you just made love to the moment and posted on it:)Awesome!
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