This week’s Story Starter image is another from my recent long weekend in Amsterdam. Doors: neighbouring doors, identical, solid, wooden.
What does it make you think of? Is it neighbours? Close neighbours, elbow to elbow.
Is it twins? They’re practically identical. But not in the first flush, you might say. Both doors are a bit battered, a bit worn, and yet still smart, elegant, imposing.
Maybe it’s about identity. Loss of identity. I wonder if it’s a condition of occupancy that the doors retain their natural wooden appearance? Now that I come to think of it I’ve never noticed red or green or blue doors in these street-level houses. So maybe the theme is having an identity imposed on one. The effort it then takes to retain or recapture a distinct identity sometimes.
Think about how vastly different the interiors might be behind these similar exteriors.
The black grilles suggest a potential security issue…. Or they make me think of those speakeasies of the Thirties where you’d sidle up to a door, knock, and a panel would open and an eye examine you….
And look at the tiny letterboxes; they must be inconvenient in these shop online times.
The woodwork of the doors is actually very like the imagery in a computer game I play sometimes: The Room. A puzzle with clues that you have to unravel to win objects and ascend levels. It’s an enigma. A maze.
Is it the rather elegant tiles that catch your eye? Those cream and green tiles (or are they black?) that line the walls? They have quality. Substance. Perhaps they speak of a grander age.
Steps up to the door, worn down with the years.
The pointing between the red bricks is cleaner and whiter than that on the right. Does that suggest pride?
Anyway, as ever I’m sure you’ll all have your own interpretations and thoughts…
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Shirley Blair Fiction Ed Shirley’s been with the “Friend” since 2007 and calls it her dream job because she gets to read fiction all day every day. Hobbies? Well, that would be reading! She also enjoys writing fiction when she has time, long walks, travel, and watching Scandi thrillers on TV.
