Below is the first bit of an experiential story I am working on. When I am finished writing it, I plan on re-enacting (experiencing) pieces of it in REAL LIVE life. Knocking on doors was a sport for Amanthra. A relaxed fist, thumb outward, and gentle shake of her wrist told her so in an anatomically intuitive whisper. Her knocks were not abrasive like certain knocks can be amongst particular salesmen marching streets in mid-August days with sweat stained pits and glorious beads of human moisture pooling from the rim of their face. No, it wasn’t the sort of knock that sends occupants into a flurry of panic. Nor the kind of knock that keeps dwellers fast asleep through blue-skied days in front of flickering cather ray tubes.
Amanthra’s knock was an in between knock, a knock firm in its conviction, gentle in its delivery, and ultimately determined to make it inside.
She lived in various places around the city, a hotel on Grand, a one-bedroom bungalow on NE Dexter, a basement apartment on SW Salmon, a greenhouse on SE Samuel, and an attic on NW Morris, all painted various hues of pink on the inside.
In addition to providing a place for slumber, eating, bubble baths, and quiet solitary pondering, her homes were gateways into the lives of others. She believed if she lived everywhere, inevitably, she would be everyone’s neighbor.
When she was younger, she decided her métier would be to make everyone’s acquaintance. This couldn’t happen with a telephone, or the interweb, or letters scribed in ink on stationary paper. This couldn’t be possible with smoke signals, singing telegrams, or radio wave salutations either. Making contact with strangers, meant shaking their hand, looking them in the eye, saying hello, and asking them how their day has been going.
She would ask this question based on her recipient’s general disposition. For instance, if she were to knock on a door and a large frowning man with stained sweatpants were to answer, she would say, quite gently, hello sir, my name is Amanthra and I just stopped by to inform you that you have been selected as one of the lucky ones I am saying hello to today.
If she were to encounter a child just home from school, she would say quite curiously, hello there, how was your day, what did you learn about this life of ours?
And if an elderly woman screamed from her davenport through dusty drapes, who is it? I don’t want any! Amanthra would bellow, it’s me Amanthra from down the block (which was true because she was from down many blocks) and eventually the old lady would let her in and they would have tea and ham sandwiches and talk about the weather and all the horrible things going on in the world today.