Show me a mysterious door slightly ajar, an unknown corridor discovered, a hidden and romantic-but-not-too-creepy alleyway, and I'll be in it faster than a cat in a cardboard box.
I've always loved the idea of secret tunnels and passageways, of portals to alternate realities and different dimensions. Once, as a child, my dad found me sitting on the stairs with my ear pressed to the wall, knocking on it and listening intently. When my dad asked me what I was doing, I replied that I was listening for hollow spaces, in case there was a secret door somewhere.
At work yesterday, on my way out of the toilets, I noticed that the wall opposite the entrance/ exit was at a funny angle. Not a wall: a door. I'd never noticed a door being there before, but there it was, slightly and tantalisingly cracked open. "Maybe this time it'll finally be Narnia!", a small, irrational part of my brain thought.
I crept up to the door, reached for the handle slowly, waited and... flung it open: 'Aha!'.
Alas, no Narnia, no Diagon Alley- not even a secret stash of toilet roll. Just a small space filled with pipes and cobwebs.
Not satisfied, and having a habitually scientific way of approaching things, I squeezed past the door and into the room, which was perhaps big enough to fit two people in with the door fully closed. I closed the door a little, experimentally. Nope, nothing: literally just a pipe room.
Trying to smother the faint sense of disappointment the irrational part of my brain was feeling, I poked my head out of the door to check that the coast was clear- just as someone walked into the toilets.
I froze, still with just my head sticking out. She stared at me, taking in the cobwebs in my hair, smiled nervously, and darted quickly into a cubicle. I hastily hopped out, dusted myself off, and walked very quickly back to the office.
(As a testament to how well my team member know me now, one of my colleagues noticed my flustered expression when I got back to my desk and asked "Oh Tash, what did you do?")
~Fin~
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