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A Little Plot of Freedom

The knocking sound was deafening, but I continued to pound my fists on the door until the rhythm seemed to take on a life of its own. Suddenly, a man opened the door just enough to let the smoke from his marijuana-filled cigar billow out into the crisp autumn air. He eyed me suspiciously, with a look of confusion on his face.

"Oops! I'm sorry, I have the wrong apartment."

I quickly walked back towards the street; I didn't want him to watch me as I tried to remember which door led to my grandmother's apartment. I had been away working in New York for the past few months, and I had always been bad at remembering numbers.

After mentally regrouping, I recalled the apartment number (it was the first three digits of my grandmother's phone number) and headed in the right direction. Her door was identical to all the others, painted red with a tiny peephole in the middle, except that hers was the only door left ajar in the entire neighborhood. I knocked gently, as a greeting, and stepped inside. The air was stuffy with a pungent blend of lima beans and Shalimar perfume.

"Oh, hello there, now take your coat off before you get sick!" My grandmother's tone was a sort of authoritative cooing.

The inside of the apartment was like stepping into a delicate doll house, filled to the brim with hand picked and mismatched treasures. The floors creak underneath a worn covering of what was once a lush, crimson carpet. With every step, I could hear the plates and glasses clinking in the china cabinet. It made me cringe. There were little glass birds and porcupines everywhere, perched on every shelf. A burgundy chandelier that looked out of place dominated the dining room, dangling from the low ceiling.

There were boxes of tissues everywhere, even though I had never seen my grandmother use any. There are not enough runny noses in the Western hemisphere to use up all of the tissues in that one apartment. The coffee table, framed in tissue boxes, had a large doily in the center. On top of the doily, a bible and a crossword puzzle dictionary were each given prominent placement.

"Here, are you hungry? Eat a sundae cup, I bought them for you. No meat." The question of hunger was merely rhetorical in my grandmother's view. She served me a little frozen ice cream sundae in a cup, the only food that had occurred to her as vegetarian. This gesture of acceptance was more than I had ever received from

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