The House Behind The Gate

On a tree lined street there are houses. The trees are tall, strong, they have been holding court on this street for what seems like an endless amount of time. The boy often stands on the sidewalk looking up, really considering these trees. Trying to imagine them small, underdeveloped and fragile. Wondering who planted them, how long it took for them to become this way. They are larger than life, he thinks. 

Behind a tall gate is the driveway to the boys house. The house isnt visible from the street, its protected by tall walls that are covered in ivy so that they dont look like what they actually are- walls. He pushes the buttons on the tiny speaker box, the one square of wall that his mother instructed the gardeners to trim weekly so the ivy doesnt cover it. If the boy was in charge, he would let the ivy grow and grow like the larger than life trees. He would see how far it could reach, the lengths that it would cover if it were just left alone, untouched. 

He types in the code and the gate opens.

He looks at the house, the large red door, its many windows, the empty balcony off his parents room. The balcony that only the cat enjoys- spending hours sleeping in the sun. The house is full of expectations, full of rules. Whenever the boy returns to it he is reminded of these expectations, how they are there forging a path for him, one that leads to another house, one that looks identical to this one, all the way down to the life being lived inside its walls. 

To deviate off the path would be a disappointment, a failure even. But worse than that, to deviate off the path would leave him in a foreign world- off the path he could end up lost. Would the house be waiting at the end? What if it wasnt? 

Sometimes the boy imagines other things at the end of the path. Sometimes theres a restaurant at the end, his restaurant that he lives above. Sometimes theres a partner there, a beautiful girl that loves him. The restaurant comes with a staff of vibrant characters, all his friends, his chosen family. They host parties and holidays there, celebrate birthdays, they sit at the bar after closing time drinking late into the night there. Inside the restaurants walls warmth and noise. 

Other times there is a shanty of a house on the beach on some remote island. He wakes up and falls asleep to the sound of waves crashing, the comforting rhythm of the ocean rising and falling. Rising only to fall again, unable to exist without this dichotomy. Sometimes he lives there with a beautiful girl that he loves, but sometimes shes not there. In her place are many different girls, each possessing one piece of her, but never one person having them all like she does. They come and go, the distance they create between him like a light breeze. Never any storms to endure, never diving into the depths, nothing to discover or crave, the mysteries remaining. Just a light breeze that barely moves the sand. 

The boy has imagined many things at the end of that path, but the one forged before him wont lead him to any of those things. He is heading toward that house and everything it represents. That degree. That profession. That salary. That safety. That wife. That child. That confirmed success. 

He imagines himself buying a ring, the most expensive ring he can and putting it on someones finger. She will show her friends and family and they will gasp at the size of the diamond. She will wear his success, his worthiness as her partner, his love for her on her left hand, forever. Forever is how long they will vow to love each other, imagining one another old and grey, everything in between an empty space. What is in that empty space the boy wonders. He thinks of the larger than life trees- growing and changing unnoticed until time stops. The empty space is what the boy fears. 

The boy imagines himself in a white doctors coat, preparing to operate on anothers heart. Like his father. He wishes he could ask his father if he feels like God. He wonders if secretly this is why his father became a surgeon. His father once referred to his profession as holding the power of life or death in your hands. He meant it as the ultimate power but the boy always wondered if we all dont already have that power? 

Sometimes the boy imagines a paintbrush in his hand, the sterile white world gone and replaced with color and mess. The freedom of a blank canvas. He imagines running his brush over the vacant white walls of the operating room. What if he created something that saved someones heart in a different way? 

The risk is too great to take a chance. No, the path forged for him has no risks, no unknowns, it is engineered that way. Just steady steps, one after the other, until he reaches the top, everything hes supposed to desire waiting there for him. The boy sometimes imagines climbing all the way to the top and standing there quietly looking down at his life. Would he be able to see everything else that exists around the staircase he climbed? Would it be a confirmation that he did it right? Or would he climb all the way to the top only to discover there is nothing there waiting for him? 

He walks into the house behind the gate, behind the walls disguised not to be walls.