Harry the Door

A door is a door is a door.
Or so they say.

But not this door.
This door was different.

This door’s name was Harry, which was already uncommon, as doors rarely have names.
Occasionally you will meet a door named Archibald, or Woodrow, perhaps even an Edward, but not a Harry.

Harry liked his name though. It kept him content, and as we all know, there is nothing more important to a door than being content.

Well, almost nothing.

Harry was ajar. He was open. Quite wide, in fact, and had been so for about eight years now, which in door days, is quite a long time.

Harry was a very important door, or would be if he’d been shut for eight years. But an open door… an open door was a direct contradiction to Harry’s very purpose in doordom.

For you see, a door is meant to close, otherwise it’s merely a doorway, and the door, or rather, Harry, hangs on his hinges unused.

Harry’s mind rarely strayed from his predicament, for its cause lay directly in front of him for the past eight years.

That cause was Professor Cummings.

In the past, the Professor had always been a friend of Harry’s. Opening, shutting, opening, shutting. Every day it was the same routine. The Professor would climb the eight hundred and sixty two and a half stairs up to Harry, swing Harry open with a push of his flappy hand, grasp the tree trunk of a rope that hung from the ceiling, and with a mighty tug from his tusklike shoulders, he would ring the bell and call the students to class.

And so it went, every day, and Harry enjoyed this thoroughly. He enjoyed the affectionate pat from Professor Cummings’ weathered palm, he enjoyed the vibrations in his hinges as the mammoth bell would gong, he enjoyed watching the Professor clasp his hands over his ears immediately after releasing the rope and cursing loudly, only to be offended once more by the groaning sentinel that was never on the lookout, for it’s eyes had long since been silenced by the very ringing it produced.

And by the fifth or sixth ring, the Professor would stop cursing, grab hold of the large bell, and attempt to slow it by heaving his weight against its swing, which always ended in his being shoved backwards onto the stone floor, grunting.

“You may be big!” the Professor would shout, “but I’m bigger!”

Which wasn’t quite true, thought Harry, for the bell surely equaled, if not surpassed, the weight of Professor Cummings, who would then stand and rest his leathery hands on the stone, looking out over the campus for a moment.

“Yes, Harry”, He would say, through thatched lips, “Looks to be another day.”

Then he would turn, grasp Harry’s knob, and shut him as he left.
That was Harry’s favorite part. For as we all know, doors love being shut.

But all that was quite a long time ago. The ancient ringing of the mammoth bell hadn’t called the students to class for many months. Professor Cummings hadn’t shut Harry in quite a while. And now Professor Cummings was getting quite old, laying on the stone before Harry. So old, that he was, in fact, dead.

First had come the birds, eager to pick away at the fresh skin of the deceased. Then the rats, gnawing at bones, lashing out at one another in vicious quarrels for rotting organs.
Then the flies, sucking away the blood and laying their maggots to tunnel through the flesh till all that was left was the bone of Professor Cummings.
...And a tiny indentation in the great bell, where the Professor had unintentionally struck it with his head after shouting to the departing ship that never turned back.

One by one, the bats came, no longer blackballed from their roost by the ringing of the great bell, now silent as Harry lay open.
The bats dropped their guano, and picked at the last of the solid bones, and carried every last bit of Professor Cummings away, except, that is, for the skull.

The skull had been too heavy for the bats, and now it rest gazing up at Harry through vacant eye sockets.

And now the wind blew, and even the bats were gone, chased away by the mist from the waters, slowly rising to the tower beneath Harry, just months after the Professor’s unfortunate accident.

And no more students traversed the green lawns, below, for the Atlantic had crawled inland and swallowed up all but the bell tower, and Harry, and Professor Cummings’ skull.

And Harry was open. Eight years now. A disgrace to his doordom.

Harry’s hinges shook, but it was not the timber of the great bell, it was the Atlantic crashing her mighty arms against his tower. But this time, as his rusty hinges shook, Atlanta finally ripped them loose, after nibbling for eight long years.

And Harry ceased to even be an open door.

And Atlanta took a great swell, and with one foul crash, she invaded the tower and carried Harry away from Professor Cummings forever.