Insanity Runs...

I can't tell the number of times I have broken into my own home, my car even.

It's a theme, to be as if always on the outside, missing something. Denied entry.

Hah perhaps, even Death will not let me in...!

Regardless, it is the stuff of nightmares.

Doors that don't open. There was something fundamental in the build of the home, the warp of the heartwood that must have started it all. I suppose it was a twisted love, doomed for downfall at inception. The story of unevenly matched souls, a skewed give and take that does not reciprocate, which gravitates in one direction-- a cliched precipitous decline. And hence, the doors and windows, ill-fitted, shutting in on themselves, and admitting neither entrance nor exit. Construction of the house, a wedding present.

I will skip the family history, save to say, that everyone but me escaped and "moved on." Mother had tried to poison Father; but pleaded mental debility and was spared jail time and disappeared into the country. Father died of mysterious illness. Later. Years passed. With neither love nor money, the property continued to rot.

And there was I, trying to make the best of it. There in the white decaying house on the hill, in the proverbial middle of nowhere, always looking over the shoulder...

when the inevitable happened.

I had returned from work, parked the car at the top of the deathly steep drive and lodged the wedge behind the rear wheel as we have always done, as a precaution, ever since one car spontaneously rolled, in reverse, with the family dog inside... As a side note, the two-car garage door was jammed for years now, only operable from the inside.

The front staircase, once impressive in its majestic climb, was now like the toothless grin of a pauper begging for sustenance and looked upon only with pity. Maybe two or three steps still dangled. Climbing was strongly prohibited. And in tragicomedy this was the only door that easily opened and shut. With a squealing laugh of the hinges.

No, to enter the house, routinely, one must go to the rear entrance. It was a steady uphill climb. The rest of the structure matched the stairs. A grand expansive design, and there was no way to see what lie around the bend of the many corners of the structure. Walking around back never failed to elicit heart palpitations for the potential of unwanted human or animal encounters. Or whatever might be lurking...

It was on one such occasion that I was a little off guard, that it finally happened. Turning the corner, I could see a black bear descending the hill. I can't reasonably estimate the distance by feet, noting the illusion of the slope itself, which makes things seem closer than they really are. I guesstimated that I had maybe five or seven minutes, depending on speed and interest.

Heart now pounding, I ran up the three steps of the back porch and tried my luck. The door of course refused to unlock!

Terrified, I realized had one last shot. I climbed up over and down the side rail and dashed to the kitchen side entrance, where there was a sliding glass door. It also was decrepit and unreliable. Sometimes, it could be pulled, if you knew how and the catch on the inside could be pushed down with a pen or stick or knife, from the outside... I was desperate and having a pair of scissors in my workbag, I fumbled and pried my luck.

Yes, I was able to crack the door back just enough... and wedge the blade through... and force it down. Sweating and terrified glancing over to the left, expecting a dark form at any moment lumbering around the side...

Open. Open. Please open. The task was now to lift the heavy glass door up and hoist it backward, because of course it no long slid as it should on its original gliders but had to be manually raised and forced open. Please lift. A little more. Please. please! I was able to manage 5 maybe inches, just enough of gap to get my face through... and as they say, if you can get your head through the rest of the average body should also be able to pass through... I wiggled, compressed and shifted my body, and held my breath to cave my chest. Like giving birth to an adolescent.

I made it inside; now the task was to shut the god forsaken door.

It would not budge.

Not a millimeter. Maybe adrenaline had run out. No one could likely get through 5 inches but still I fought for it like life depended on it... Ugh. Yank, I heaved, pulling up and towards myself. Finally, it lunged forward, and I quickly clasped the latch.

Whew. I slid to the floor. Heart pounding. Lungs hurting. Suppressing tears.

Such relief! for I instinctively felt that I needed to be... locked up.

For safety.

We know perfectly well that bears do not attack people.

Unprovoked.