Franklinand theDuck

The Friendship Wasn’t · Field Note 301

The Doorway

Day 412, Abby, with Cookie · 2 min read

THE DAY

She left the room at about four.

She was on the arm of the couch and I was on the rug, a good way off, not looking at her, and she got down and went out through the door into the hall and did not come back.

So I went and lay down four feet from the doorway she went through, facing it, with my chin on the floor, in case she came back.

THE RULE

The rule is that you do not follow.

I worked this out early. If you follow her out of a room she goes up, and once she is up the day is over, and you have to start again tomorrow from further back than you were this morning.

So you do not follow. You go to the doorway she used, and you stop short of it, and you make yourself somebody she could walk past if she wanted to.

The four feet is important. I have tried three and three is too close.

THE OBSERVATION

She did not come back.

I was there until about six, which is two hours, and in two hours nothing came through that doorway except the pug, twice, who stepped on my ear the second time and did not notice.

But here is the thing I want to write down.

When she left, she went out through the hall door.

There are two ways out of that room. There is the hall door, and there is the gap by the kitchen, and the gap by the kitchen is nearer the couch and is the way she usually goes.

She went the long way. Past me. Within about two feet of my head.

She could have gone the other way and not come near me at all, and she did not, and I have been thinking about it since.

THE REFRAME

So: a good day.

I know it does not look like one. I lay on a floor for two hours facing a door that nobody came through, and if you wrote down only that, it would look like nothing at all.

But she walked past me on her way out, when she did not have to, and she did not hurry when she did it, and she has done that four times now that I have noticed.

I am not saying it means anything yet. I am only saying I noticed, and that I am keeping count, and that four is more than three.

Tomorrow I will be on the rug again.

COOKIE: It’s the shorter way.