She casts a wary look around her as she steps in through the little metal gate. Before her, a narrow stone stairway leads the way up to the first floor of a grime-red brick building. She determinedly makes her way up the stairs, skips the last step and turns as she reaches the half-moon shaped landing. Carefully, she presses down the handle of the old wooden door. It’s unlocked, and opens with a slow squeak. The derelict room that lies behind is bathing in bright sunlight, casting lopsided shadows on the ripped beige linoleum floor. The bleached wallpaper hangs in wave-like, shaded tears. She stands motionless in the doorway for a moment, then she steps inside.

*

It is the first time Liv has managed to sneak up to the room unseen. Since she first noticed the metal gate in the backyard of the little bohemian cafe she sometimes worked in, she had not been able to stop thinking about it. Something special had caught her attention that hazy summer afternoon. It almost looked as if the gate was hiding there in the corner by the bins, slightly ajar, warily offering to let her discover its keepings…

Unfortunately, the backyard wasn’t very accessible. The only time she was allowed out there was for putting out the rubbish at the end of a shift. Apart from the cafe staff, only a couple of residents could access the backyard. It was weirdly secure, with a brick wall and door through for which you needed a special key. She had never thought too much about the yard’s limited access before, but since discovering the gate she couldn’t stop considering the connections. In the unconventional coastal town she lived, there was not many closed off spaces.

How can I never have seen the gate before? She asked herself repeatedly, until she was so disorientated by the question tumbling around in her head that she had to vocalise it. “Have you seen the metal gate in the corner… Outside, in the back?” she asked the dreadlocks-woman with harems trousers, whose name she could never remember, a couple of days after her discovery. “What? Which gate?” dreadlocks replied, aloofly scanning the few tables for empty coffee cups. “It’s little, black. The colour is peeling off… By the bins.” Liv tried, hesitantly. “Never seen it mate, sorry. I usually try to escape bin duty as much as possible, if you know what I mean.” dreadlocks said with an unconcerned wink.

During her next few shifts, Liv tried to casually mention the gate in conversation with her other colleagues, but no one seemed to have noticed the little metal gate before. When she finally got around to ask the owner, she was so tired of being cautious that she frankly just asked, “So... What is behind that little metal gate? In the backyard?” The owner frowned, something seemed to flash before his eyes as his thick eyebrows turned into perfectly straight lines. “Which gate? There are quite a few in the backyard.” he replied with a strained voice. Normally the atmosphere between the cafe staff and the owner was very relaxed, but this time the owner suddenly became professional. Before Liv got a chance to answer, he snapped, “Liv. Please don’t snoop in other people’s businesses. I don’t know what’s caught your contemplation this time, but you know what the residents back there are like. OK?” Liv realised that if she wanted to find out what was beyond the metal gate, she would have to find out for herself. And she would have to plan the exploration properly.

The result of the plan took place on a Sunday morning, the only day of the week that the cafe was closed. Liv had managed to convince the owner to lend her the cafe keys, with the explanation that she forgot a very important college book inside the cafe. The owner reluctantly agreed to giving her the keys, making her promise to be quick and focused. Both inside and outside the cafe, Liv was known for getting lost in daydreams.

“Clever, but not attentive enough” was what she’d been told, from primary school to sixth form. She just couldn’t help ceaselessly slipping in and out of her imagination. Somehow her mind was always in two places at once: the real world, and the parallel one her mind kept creating and recreating. If she saw a tree wagging its branches in the wind, she could hear it sing. When she looked up into the sky when it rained she would see rainbows floating by, leaving prisma-coloured tails like the ones of airplanes. She talked to cats and birds whenever she met them on the street, and when she was to tell someone about an incident from her life she often found herself wondering whether it had happened in reality or in a dream.

As a child she never reflected on her perception of the world much, perhaps too busy imagining the next thing. She knew that she was the odd one in most social contexts, but because people found her imagination fun and entertaining, it never stopped her from making friends. It was not until she started college that she realised, no matter how much she wanted to, she simply couldn’t just be in her physical world at any given time. Her mind’s separate reality was always present, no matter how much she tried to suppress it. And in all fairness, most of the time she did not want to suppress it. Her mind was her oasis. She loved the experiences she could create for herself, only in the space between her two ears. However, the older she got, the more she got the occasional urge to find an emptiness, a moment of deliverance from her cluttered brain.

Because of her condition, the creative subjects were the only ones she ever managed to get any decent results in. Educationally, that was when she could use her imagination to her advantage. The rest seemed too particular and square for her to grasp, which was the reason for why she was now studying towards her A-levels for the third time.

* 

Liv steps through the doorway, and the same second as her foot touches the floor inside, her mind turns completely blank. Nothing exists in there, apart from the flashing images of the room that her eyes register mechanically between the blinks of her eyelids. It is like all the rest of her senses switch off. She cannot hear anything. She cannot smell anything. It is just her vision, wandering. The sun is streaming in through the large, dirty windows. It is like the room is mirroring a blurry version itself in the windows’ dustiness. Nothing can get in apart from the sun, and nothing gets out. It is just the inside of the room endlessly reflecting itself in its simulated mirrors towards the non-existent outside world.

It looks as if the room has been left halfway through a move. No little things are left, only large furniture that probably proved too awkward to squeeze down the scanty stairway. The girl’s eyes instinctively scan the room. In the right corner, next to the doorway, is an old grandfather clock that seems to have stopped. Its rusty hands are pointed at five minutes past eleven. She finds herself wondering weather it would have been in the morning or the evening that the clock stopped. The thought is so pure and simple that she feels overwhelmed by it. A shiver of pleasure emits from the top of her head down to her lower back and crotch. It is merely that wonder and the feeling it brings, no associations or imaginations follow. The only thing she wants to know, right this second, is what time of day the grandfather clock stopped.

The thought floats away and her eyes move on. They pass the three windows on the long side of the rectangular room, and find their way to a decrepit, dark wood dresser. On top of the dresser stands a cloudy mirror, slanting, facing up towards the ceiling. A quivering urge to see her own face instantly fills her head. She takes a step forwards into the sunlight, and in the foggy mirror she sees dust particles dance around her brisk face. Her skin seems to be glowing. It is a sharp contrast against the dark hair framing her broad forehead. The blue vain on her left temple is unusually visible in the sunlit room. She feels the blood pumping in it, rhythmic like clicking of an old bike.

Her head spins with the thrilling feeling of being inside time. Nothing else matters than this rousing experience of seeing the world with such clear vision. Lastly, in the third faraway corner of the room, she spots a chiffonier. It is the kind with a flipped up desk, for which you need a key to flip down and access the drawers hiding behind. Compared to the rest of the furniture in the room, the chiffonier looks oddly preserved. It is as if no dust has found its way to its top surface. The brass handles and desk lock shine like they have been freshly polished. She finds herself grasped by the desire to open down the chiffonier desk. Her eyes haphazardly search the room again. The sharp desire of unlocking something unknown again fills her mind and turns into a hard pounding in her forehead. She desperately spins around on her spot in the middle of the room, and there, on a metal hook to the right of the left long side’s window, hangs a little brass key. She resolutely walks up to the spot below the key, and reaches up to grab it. Waves of dazzling pleasure flow through her head. It feels like the vain on her temple is about to burst. The will to get the key in her hand makes her feel like she is obsessed. She has to grab it.

The second she wraps her hand around the brass key, a strong force throws her backwards. Suddenly, everything around her swirls and she cannot see clearly. Different images of different realities flash through her head. The ceiling starts cracking. The wallpaper starts ripping itself off. The floor starts moving under her feet. For a second it is all untouched again, just to go back to distortion the second after. She can’t tell reality from imagination anymore. Her vision is blinking between sunlight and demolishing darkness. She hears a sound that is like a wind blowing, whining through her whole existence. With her head spinning, she tries to get her body to run for the door. But the different worlds before her eyes keep colliding, and she stumbles on her own feet. She reaches the door, and flings herself down the breaking stairway. She wobbles and falls over, and slides a few steps on her bum. The sharp, shattered stones draw long lines of pain on her bare legs. Everything is falling apart underneath her, but she keeps fighting to get to the metal gate. Finally she reaches it, and throws herself through the gap.

As soon as she is on the other side, the collapsing stops. In a split second, everything is quiet. The wind is gone. Her mind is back to its normal subtle mess again. The smell of someone frying aubergines fills her nostrils, and for a moment she feels as if she is the one holding the frying pan. Something sharp is pressing into her hand. Then the background sounds of the living world reach her ears and she turns around. The metal gate is there, and so is the stone stairway. Intact, as if nothing ever happened. Her heart jumps and she squeezes her eyes shut and opens them again. Then she realises that the gate is closed. Apprehensively, she takes a step forward. She tries to push it open, but it is locked.

In her palm lies a small brass key.