“I still can’t tie a square knot properly…”
                -K. O’Neill, A Song for You & I, p. 24

                Earlier today, when I was going to write this piece, I thought I would respond to Christopher Huang’s Unnatural Ends. So I went to our bedroom where the book’s resting. (My partner and I were reading it aloud last night). I closed the door behind me, which I almost never do, but my partner was in there resting, and we had friends over who were staying a bit late. Then I turned to go. And the door wouldn’t open. I tried the doorknob again. Wouldn’t open. Tried the doorknob the other way, and again, and then after a bit I called to our friends from across the house. They came to try the door from the other side, and it wouldn’t open. We tried the door with the key just to check. Wouldn’t open. Now we’ve escaped by disassembling the doorknob mechanism and pulling out the lock. I’ve looked at the pieces, and oiled them till they all slide nicely, and wiped the oil from my hands, and I still don’t know why it wouldn’t open, or for that matter, as I push around the nicely oiled pieces, quite how it’s supposed to work.
                I don’t know so many of the things that move around me. And it can be frustrating, or at least, I spent some of the last hour frustrated, but it’s also a delight. Here’s this clever trick hidden in the mechanism behind the door knob, moving every day beneath my fingers, and me never knowing what it is or how it works until something small slides a different way and I’m left standing, looking, baffled by one of the world’s little sliding pieces.