He walked on down the corridor. It was cold. Cold, dark and long. He passed by many closed doors. He felt alone. He was.
He wondered about the doors. What went on behind them? And what was that haunting music that played inside the rooms? One day on his journey, which by now had taken many years, one of the doors swung open. Tentatively, he looked in. There was a blast of cold air and the door slammed shut in his face.
After that he tried not to think of the doors and the rooms and the music and
with stoic resolve he ventured on. Not ventured really, more like, slouched. The corridor seemed endless. He started to shiver and in that moment he could not help but think of a place that he had heard of in stories. A place that was warm, sheltering and all aglow with something that some people called ʻloveʼ. On and on he went. An eternity seemed to pass and then, finally it happened!
Another door opened before him. Only this time there was no ʻswingʼ involved. It was more of a gentle sway and in that action lay a welcome so warm that it melted the ice in his heart. Transfixed, he moved towards this opening but there was something in his way. In the gloom he found it hard to make out the details of this blockade. Gradually though, his eyes became accustomed to the lack of light and he saw that the thing that impeded his progress was nothing more than a pile of small rubble. The rubble was made of broken dolls. Gently he cleared them away. Then, taking a deep breath, he entered the room.
It was the most beautiful place that he had ever seen. Candles bloomed aglow illuminating the peach coloured walls and for the very first time in his short, long life he felt at peace ... at one ... at home. He stayed in the room for many blessed seasons and many wonderful things happened there. Everyday he would bask in the radiance of this sanctuary and everyday he would thank his lucky stars that he had happened upon it’s threshold. He was however, a most curious fellow and after a time he found that he ached to stray.
So he would leave the room and embark on brief exploratory excursions. Sometimes, some of the other doors, doors that previously had remained closed to him, would creak open and he would go in. He would never stay for long and he would always return to the room with the beautiful glowing light, for he knew that there lay his true heart’s salve and love. Despite all of this, the other doors still haunted him, especially the ones that had remained closed. There was one door at the end of hall that intrigued him most of all. It was dark and mysterious. Frightening and fascinating in equal measure. He knew that this would be the last room that he would ever enter. The door loomed there like a monolith.
Now, time is a funny thing but when there is more sand in the bottom bowl of the hour glass than the top, the punch-line starts to look less amusing. He knew that it would not be long before he opened that last great door. The door at the end of the corridor.
There were fireworks going off in his head as he realized that there was only so much sand to go. So little sand and so, consequently, very little time in which to investigate all the rooms that lay behind all the other doors. So once again he made the journey. He was compelled to do so. Driven, in fact. Lashed with a whip called ʻmortalityʼ, he had to go and look!
Now when he opened the other doors, a chill wind would blow back down along the corridor. It would creep into the beautiful warm room where he had lived for so long and it would make the candles gutter and die, but still he would persist in his desirous, raging voyage and although he knew that the song that he heard, that cheap, sexy, smokey song full of bruised sunsets and city neon, that illusive little song that called his foolish heart, was one which issued from the lips of the treacherous sirens, there was nothing that he could do but sail. Sail towards the rocks that lay beyond that final looming door.