As part of a monthly writing group we are given prompts which we can use (if we wish) to write something for the following meeting. For this month, the prompts were ‘A Bridge To Nowhere’ or ‘Back to School’.
There was thick fog, I remember. Cloud perhaps. Forest cloud, clinging to the trunks and branches around me. Dripping off pine needles from above.
My feet were cold and wet. I looked down and found I was standing in snow, a couple of inches deep. My Disney slippers were soaked.
There was a thick tree trunk on my right. Dark brown. Deep gouges in it. I put my hand out and felt how wet it was, with water streaming down in rivulets.
I could see almost nothing ahead of me. No lights. Nothing. Though I expected to see a street lamp. Like in Narnia.
And the Snow Queen. And Mr Tumnus. And Aslan the lion.
My hand on the tree was cold, my feet freezing, my dressing gown damp from the drips from the trees.
So I turned back to the short tunnel I’d crawled through. It was completely dark, the floor, walls and ceiling flat and slippery.
I pushed at the door ahead of me, where I’d come through, and it opened with a jerk, the brightest of lights momentarily blinding me.
I fell hard, hitting my knees and stifling a shout.
My mum was there, looking down at me.
Behind her on the counter, neatly stacked where I had left them, were blocks of butter and cheese, jars of jam and chutney, a lettuce, some tomatoes.
“Michael, don’t ever, ever go in the fridge again. And why are your slippers so wet? Where have you been?”
She looked towards the back door. Summer rain was still running down the pane.
“Nowhere,” I said.
She was shaking her head. “I’ll get some towels and mop the floor. I might as well defrost the fridge. Give me your slippers and I’ll put them in the airing cupboard.”
As she disappeared into the hall, she called, “Time you went back to school.” And more quietly, “Six-year-olds. I think we’ll read a different book tonight.”
I stood up, my knees hurting, and looked back at the open fridge door.
I made my voice as deep as I could and said, “The fridge to nowhere.”
My mum’s voice from the hall. “And don’t go in my wardrobe again!”