“The Doorbell”

Here I am, 10 years old again…

Approaching quietly, secretively, one foot placed directly in front of the next to such an extreme that my balance is momentarily thrown off. I take a quick glance back over my shoulder to the whispered snickers of “them”… those cowards, my pals. No! They’re not my friends. How could they be if they won’t join along in this adventure, in our adventure. Really, if I’m the only one willing to go that distance, up those stairs, onto that porch, and push that little button… to ring that doorbell… to see what lurks within, then who are those whispered snickers coming from? I ponder, while an eternity passes me by… perhaps my friends consider me their leader, the bravest among us? Do they look up to me? Yes, at last I’m certain they must. Puffing myself up with newfound courage, I advance another step, and then stop, entranced by the vine growing across each step. Ohhhhhh, I’m being hypnotized…I can feel it…. the vine… I feel it’s started winding out towards my feet. It’s going to grab my ankles, yank me into a vast dungeon, I’ll be locked away forever. Snap! I’m awake, I’m alive, I’m turning, scampering back down those steps and blindly flying past my pals to the safety of the sidewalk… they’ll never know about my close call with the dungeon. I wouldn’t want them to know. They don’t have the courage to handle such a scare.

Today’s Foto Fix and resulting story visualized by my imagination are the result of my visit this afternoon to The Gamble House in Pasadena, an American Arts and Crafts home designed and built by Greene & Greene in 1908 for the Gamble family, of Proctor & Gamble fame. More pictures coming in another article sometime this week. ~SueBee (photo by SueBee)