Opening the Doors

   Two narrow windows allowed sufficient sunlight to enter the room. A girl about five years old was sitting at the table and drawing, using blue pastel. Her curls fell softly on her shoulders. Sitting on a wide wooden chest, she occasionally tapped her foot on the side of it. This knock was expressively reflected fromthe walls of a small room, recalling a knock on a door, when a guest or a stranger came to somebody’s house, notifying the owner of the arrival. The girl slowly, even monotonously hummed the same melody. When she made pauses, she was playing with Susan’s doll that she took from the kindergarten. She remembered the day when everyone had tried to find it, but had not. When her drawing was finished, she came up to the chest of drawers. She pinned the drawing to the framed corkboard with drawing pins and stepped back a little to look at the progress she had made. Apparently quite pleased with her result, she opened the top drawer of the chest of drawers. It didn’t open at once, that dropped a hint that it was full and even too full. Finally, she opened the drawer and peeked inside. Satisfied, she quickly ran her eyes over the jewelry. Despite the fact that there were already the beads on her neck, several bracelets adorned her wrists and a pair of rings were on her plump fingers, she thoughtfully chose two more rings with the largest and brightest stones. Before she had time to close the chest of drawers, suddenly a grey hand appeared from a pile of jewelry and grabbed her wrist. The girl screeched a little and stared at the hand. She heard a disgusting low voice from the chest of drawers. She didn’t answer the question, shifted from foot to foot and tried to escape, but failing to achieve any success in this, she froze. The voice spoke again, this time more demanding: “I asked the question.” The girl answered as shortly as she could. The hand abruptly let her go. Her father entered the room. He hastily began to say something, but saw the slightly disheveled look of his daughter and asked if she was all right. She said yes and smiled with a satisfied, childish smile. It was that particular smile that needed a little bit more time to be an adult’s one. With a nod, he left the room. The girl closed the chest of drawers and sighed, pushed back the curtains, looking out the window. The birds were barely audible outside the window. Mostly the engine of her father’s car drowned out their singing. He was going to work and she knew it. She returned to the wooden chest, which she had used instead of a chair. She realized that she was alone again, but now with her own questions. The next moment the wooden chest opened with a creak. Something dark and indescribable grabbing the girl by the hand with lightning speed, dragged her into the wooden chest. There was a sound of jewelry tinkling. Several rings fell out of the wooden chest to the floor and rolled under the bed when the wooden chest slammed shut. The girl’s scream was now heard from the wooden chest. Her hands beat on the its lid from the inside, but the wooden chest didn’t open and didn’t let her go. The last thing she yelled before stopping her vain attempts and giving up was: “There is no space here.”

   Her father was a jeweler who sometimes took old jewelry and reworked for his clients. When he had especially large orders, he calmly and confidently left the city without any doubts, moving to another one. That was working. People believed him and yes, that was the time when people couldn’t think his intentions were dishonest. Even more, they couldn’t believe that he could cheat or be a thief. Sometimes they came to him with their family jewelry. Those were people, who urgently needed money. He gave them his consent, but didn’t pay them even a cent under the pretext that at the moment he didn’t have such a sum of money and they needed to wait. He fed them with meaningless and empty promises. In the end everything ended as always, he ran away, taking with him everything that was entrusted him.

   Nearly one thousand miles away.
He loved to travel. At times, it was his hobby or even his favorite pastime. He could travel for years, sometimes even for centuries, anywhere and in any way. However, most of all he liked stolen things. He could always figure out where such a thing was. He knew how to get to such a thing faster and of course, he knew all the details and the whole history of each of those things. He felt them. That attracted his attention instantly and he liked these quivering moments. He felt real pleasure when he found out where, when and why it was time for him to go. He was good at this. It tasted like a mixture of someone else’s hopelessness and someone’s greed. He was aware of how he would savor it when he got it.
“I’m already going. I will find you,” he muttered as his grey body was hidden in the shade of a tree and only the gnashing of his teeth was heard.