Long I stood there, eyes closed, not daring to see into what unfathomable situation I had stepped. I could feel a soft breeze at my back, as the air from the still open doorway behind me wafted gently in from the garden within which I had lingered merely moments before.<\/p>\n
I took this occasion of temporary self-imposed darkness to listen carefully, taking in the sounds all around me. Off at some distance I could hear the uncertain rustling of the trees outside the house. Yet here within there were other sounds, sounds that seemed oddly familiar.<\/p>\n
For example, I could make out the steady muffled ticking of a clock. It seemed to me that I had heard this particular clock before, although I could not, at the moment, place the memory.<\/p>\n
Then I heard another sound that was far more surprising in its nature. It sounded for all the world like footsteps approaching. Yet surely this was impossible, for I knew the house to be abandoned.<\/p>\n
My eyes remained tightly closed, now more out of fright than from any act of will on my part. While I stood there, still as a statue, my head was filled with a million thoughts. What manner of creature approached? Was I in mortal danger? Were these to be my last moments upon this earth?<\/p>\n
And then I felt something completely unexpected — the touch of lips upon my lips. A kiss, warm wonderful and wholly familiar.<\/p>\n
Startled, I opened my eyes wide. Standing there before me, with not a hair out of place, was my deceased bride.<\/p>\n
“You are home early,” she said brightly. Then she peered more closely into my face, which in that moment had undoubtedly turned the color of alabaster.<\/p>\n
“Darling,” she said, “you look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Long I stood there, eyes closed, not daring to see into what unfathomable situation I had stepped. I could feel a soft breeze at my back, as the air from the still open doorway behind me wafted gently in from the garden within which I had lingered merely moments before. I took this occasion of … Continue reading “The unopened door, part 8”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20495"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20495"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20496,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20495\/revisions\/20496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}