yann at the door

I started writing seriously when I was nineteen, yann martel shares in a collection of writing, this is my best. it is not his own collection; it is a collective. authors who span different genres -- the comic, the visual, the scientific, the fictional, the political -- share what they think is their finest display of self. I wrote a play about a young man who falls in love with a door. oh! the beauty of a mind young and ready to conquer, ready to set fire onto stone. when a friend finds out and destroys the door, our hero commits suicide. the sadness of things. it was as bad as it sounds. but was it really that bad? the first step was a capital step for me because, for the first time in my life, I wrote something for its own sake; that is, the sake of art. yann, (do you mind if I call you yann? would mr. martel be better? no? okay, good. thanks.) i've been dying to ask you; I need to know. that door you wrote about, the one that was worth self-annihilation, was it closed? was it open? I bet it was neither; I bet it was both; I bet it was nothing. a door forever opening and closing, a door too intricate to know: its knob, its make, its grain. and where was the door located? the gate to a closet packed with clothes? the entrance to a pantry? was it at the front of the house? out back? I bet it was neither; I bet it was both; I bet it was nothing. I bet it was your heart, the opening of your soul, the mouth of a river. I bet it was everything.