#postern

Trou noir (XIV), Otrante, Les Pouilles ( Italie du sud)

I am the space between the stars. The moment before midnight, just before the final tock of the clock. The burst of energy you feel just before you hit the water and after you’ve already jumped away from the shore. The light of the lamppost miles ahead on a lonely road through endless flat fields. And the uncomfortable yet not entirely unpleasant feeling that comes with falling into disassociation and then later being jolted back again to all that is real. I am a postern. A gate. A backdoor. I am an arch of stone that lies at the heights of a winding stone staircase. On either side of the stairs are rising rocky walls that form a sort of tunnel. But the heights of that tunnel rise into blackness. There is nothing there. Beyond me, beyond the carved stone of my arch, the stairs continue onward, winding up and off into the distance. Off into the darkness and the distant glimmer of light filtering through deep water.

In the trees there is a door. It lies off the path and deep in the darkest places of the forest. It is carved of rowan wood, with detailed patterns that repeat ad infinitum across its surface. Stare at those patterns for too long, follow the map they make across your mind, and you will be lost for ever. There is no handle, but there is a knocker. You cannot go through of your own volition. Someone else must let you through from the other side, provided they hear your frantic knocking.

You are frantic because, of course, you are being pursued by endarkened beasts and monsters with glistening teeth that would like nothing better than to devour you. You must escape. So you bang the knocker, praying that someone will hear. All the while aware that no benediction has yet fallen to you from the other side, from some savior’s lips.

The door is placed between an apple tree, for immortality, and a Pomegranate tree, for Death. There is no door frame. The door is held by the roots of the tree and the bush. It cannot open, for there is no threshold, no postern. Liminal space lies all around, instead of in the door where it belongs. When the door is the destination, all other rules are held in suspense, suspended. If only once again the door can become the journey and not the destination, maybe then will the world right itself and the door will be able to open. The frame will be restored and the transitory lanes will once more lie within.

Postern in Senlis, Picardy region of France

Tramway and Postern Quay in Château-Thierry, Champagne region of France

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