A Woman Stands at the Entrance to Purgatory

Have you ever stood at the entrance of somebody’s house for too long? I mean a really long time. Way past awkward. Picture this: you’re standing there in the liminal space, shoes half-on your feet because you’re not sure if you’re meant to take them off or not. There’s no guide book for this sort of thing. You can’t exactly call out and ask, because who would be listening? The music is too loud. Cass said she’d be back as soon as she found her boyfriend and grabbed a couple of drinks, but it’s been five minutes now and you don’t know anybody else here. You don’t remember Bump and Grind being this long.

Let’s say you decide to continue on down this stretching hallway lined with a stranger’s baby pictures and vaguely discouraging embroidery pieces. What the hell are you supposed to do about the shoe situation? Leave them on? Track driveway dirt down the Venetian runner? Or stuff them under the coat rack, right beneath some bogan’s Collingwood windbreaker?

I refer to the entrance as a liminal space because you hardly ever find yourself hanging out there. You’re either leaving, in a rush to be somewhere else, or collapsing through the front door and thinking only of the kitchen, or of that new sectional sofa you just bought for cheap that’s dying to lovingly cradle your overworked ass. Perhaps you kick off your shoes beneath the Collingwood windbreaker.

Standing there now at the apex of this party, you consider doing it all backward. I mean this literally. Drifting back out through the open front door and into the cool pink night, where the street smells like somebody’s barbecue, and the early 2000s R&B music can be heard for almost a block. You think about walking in your weightless high heels, gliding down the concrete like Michael Jackson. For a moment you are suspended in time, squashed between the street outside and Cass’s just wait here one sec. 

Then someone pokes their head around the corner, comes up from down the hallway, and the whole plan becomes dust. Worst-case scenarios beam their frenetic siren song against the sides of your skull, overeager puppies. Who’s that walking towards you? It’s somebody’s landlord. The devil himself. Or else somebody’s juiced-up chaperone, he of the tank-like complexion and bucket hat, who will see right through your disguise immediately and demand to know what you’re doing here. Imposter! This party is strictly invite-only. Begone, trojan beast!

You start to breathe harder. A smoker on the cusp of a marathon. Fumble a hand to your pocket, for your keys, a crumpled up bit of paper, the shape they both make. On the wall beside you, in the glowing embers of party lights, your shadow stretches until you can’t quite make out the you in it anymore, and it all becomes just a hallway ghost.

“Hey.” The girl-- because it is just a girl-- has reached the end of the hallway now. She’s blinking at you, like she’s trying to figure out your subterfuge. “Cass’s friend, right? Are you gonna take off your shoes?”

You’ve been standing in the entrance for too long. You head inside, kicking off your shoes along the way.