If It Were The Right Door, It Would Have Been Opened (Flash Fiction)

Flash Fiction #172

“I was at the parking lot of Menlo Park Mall. And I couldn’t open my car door. Suddenly my key was not working. Can you believe that? How come? It was incredulous.” Lulan says.

“Probably you got the wrong key. I mean you probably got your husband’s car key, mistaking it for yours.” Pammy says.

“No, my husband has the new car with a fancy key. Mine is the old car with a plain old car key. They are too different to be easily mistaken. I was definitely holding the right key. Please hear me out.” Lulan says. “Then a couple just came over, standing there watching me twitching my key. The woman said to me, ‘can I help you?’ So she stared at me and I stared at her. Then it dawned on me that it was their car, which is the same model as mine. Our cars look very similar and I mistook their car for mine, which was parked several slots away. Since both cars are old, there are no alarms or anything like that. I am glad the couple was rather nice. I mean they didn’t call the police to arrest me as a car thief.”

“As an immigrant, one can’t be more careful. A little mistake can escalate into… you know…” Arju says. Arju is a very cautious woman. It is almost as if her life’s aspiration is never to make any mistakes. However no matter how much she wants to avoid life’s mistakes, she still ends up complaining about her relationships with her husband and her son, and wondering if she has made mistakes along the way.

“You know if it were the right car and the right door, it would have been opened in one try or two tries. So basically I was working on a wrong car, a wrong door, like a dog barking at a wrong tree. I should have known it after the third try. I should have realized it, but I didn’t. I kept doing it.” Lulan says.

“What a good metaphor. We do this all the time, working on some impossible projects, chasing some impossible goals, wishing for a result that will never come. The problem is that it’s the wrong car and the wrong door. No matter how hard we try, it will not work. It’s such a good metaphor for some relationships, isn’t it?” Pammy says. 

“Are you two talking about me? I mean you can just directly tell me. You don’t have to use a detour or a metaphor.” Arju says, a little hurt.

Lulan and Pammy look at each other, a little surprised at the turn of the conversation. They didn’t even think about Arju and her strained relationships at home. And quickly they start to comfort Arju so that she doesn’t feel bad about this. 

“We didn’t even think about you when we .. I mean I think you have a workable relationship despite a little difficulty. I mean you have the right car and the right door to work with.” Pammy says.

“Really? Sometimes I wonder if I have the wrong car and the wrong door.” Arju says.

“Well, Arju, don’t be upset if I say that probably every door is a wrong door as far as relationships are concerned. We have to be responsible for our own pleasure. If we imagine that an object, an event, or a person can bring us happiness and we are obligated to chase this object, event or person by sacrificing ourselves, we are very likely to feel depleted and disappointed and ill-used.” Lulan says.

“Every door is a wrong door, you say? Let me think. Still some doors are more wrong than other doors, right? Well, what’s point of thinking of it if one doesn’t have the money to make changes. You know people talk about changes as if changes don’t cost money.” Arju says.

The three women continue to chat and wish they can just chat overnight or over the whole weekend.

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Image by Davies Designs from Pixabay