I hadn’t even noticed it when I walked through the house for the first time. I was too distracted by the old world charm, rustic build and the dark, cherry hardwood floors. Maybe that’s materialistic of me, but if it’s any consolation I regret not looking deeper. I regret that a lot.
It wasn’t until I was getting moved in that I first saw it. And to make matters worse it was after a couple (five) glasses of wine, which ebbed my doubt. I mean don’t get me wrong- I would have been skeptical otherwise, I mean who could simply accept the fact that they discovered a gateway into another world?
That’s what it is right? Like I’m in another dimension? Something like that?
Anyway, I first saw it when I began taking empty boxes to the basement. Well it’s more of a cellar really, mud and stone walls. They told me it had been built in 1856- the house I mean- who knows about the cellar, probably nearly as old if not the same age.
But I had a box of my old toys- a box my mother had insisted I take...Nevermind, you don’t want to hear about that, I’m sure. I was taking this box downstairs to store, when I noticed it for the first time. There was-is, in my world, I guess a sort of dividing wall. Thinking about it now, I’m surprised I didn’t notice it before. I mean it’s right smack dab in the middle of the room. It runs floor to ceiling, and cuts the middle portion if the room in two. It’s the damndest thing when you see it. You wonder; Just what the f-hell--heck were they thinking putting this thing here, ya know?
But umm, I sat the box down on the floor, impressed with myself that I had also carried my wine glass down the stairs at the same time by balancing it on top of the box.
I noticed the dividing wall, it was just sort of there...Dim yellow-grey stone, aged from years of damp, and it looked like the darkness of the basement had seeped into it along with the elements. I retrieved my wine glass and walked around the wall, studying it along the way. It was fine on the side facing the steps leading into the downstairs; normal stone, coarse to the touch and earthy to the nose. Nothing out of the ordinary.
The back of the wall though- that was a different story entirely. You see- and you might know this already- I’m not sure, but there was a window.
Yes that’s right- a damned window sitting on a wall in the middle of a room, down in my basement!
Through the glass I could see a landscape. It looked like one of those sepia scenes of the shoreline in some east coast state, like South Carolina. There was sloped sand and surf and tufts of long lazy grass. An open sky beckoned to me.
At first I thought it was a picture or a painting, but then the grass swayed from the wind off the coast. I thought I was losing it, but when I got closer to the supposed picture I could actually hear the wind coming off the waves and cutting across the sand, the waves rolling into the shore.
My right hand opened without my knowing and the glass of wine went crashing to the unfinished floor. I gave it no thought in that moment(even stepping over it later). Unconsciously, that same hand went to the window, instinctively going for a small wooden knob on the side. Of course I did, I couldn’t resist you see? My inhibitions being lowered, my sense of danger dulled. That coupled with my curiosity was the catalyst for all of this.
I stood there, swaying from my drunkenness, my brain bobbing and swimming in irrational thoughts and wine. I sized up the window. It was only about 120 square inches, far from the size I would need to crawl through, let alone walk through. But I wanted very much to go through that opening, to see the beach, to touch the water. In fact the sensation to do so was near overpowering. I stared at the window, and longed to be on the other side, I was mesmerized at the possibility.
My mind cycled through ways by which I could deliver my fixation. Eyes darted from corner to grimey corner of the basement, looking for a particular tool. I yearned to transport myself unto my current mania.
In the final corner of the cellar I saw it. A rusted sledgehammer sat propped up on its head. Barefeet plodded across the dusty floor, greedily I groped for the hammer. I lifted it and smiled, I couldn’t see my face, but imagine my grin was a cross between lunacy and satisfaction.
I turned to face that wall with the inexplicable window, and I swung, my body powered by a force that was both unsettling and unknown. The first swing cracked the thin glass pane, the second shattered the wooden frame. The third swing was the slightly rusted hammer meeting stone, and I was frightened for a moment that the hammer’s head would be dislodged from its worn handle and fly across the cellar.
Instead the hammer held together, and it was the stone that gave way. A small chunk crumpled at first; the lip-like sill below the window disintegrating. I reeled back again, sweating now from compulsion, letting loose with blow after blow as the stones did the same.
How many times I had to bring that hammer down, I do not know. But when I let the hammer fall for the final time I was breathless. In front of me was now a near-man sized hole. I could now not only see the beach, but feel it’s wind actually enter the basement. It was cool, much more frigid than the stuffy cellar and quick to cool the sweat on my brow, and chill my bare feet.
After surveying my work for the better part of a minute, I felt a driving thought cut through my mind, as if another person was yelling at me from inside my own mind.
That voice within the within screamed a question in warning; What are you doing?
I crouched and stepped through the newly created threshold…
TO BE CONTINUED!
