Savannah Jaye

The house with the yellow gate.

It was whispered to me as if it was the kind of secret everyone knew, but none spoke of; immediately I had flashed back to my own house: gateless and void of all yellow. I needed to know what, and more importantly who, was behind that gate—despite the fact that deep down I was confident that I already knew the answer to those questions.

The next night as I left the beach, I resolved that to find this house and its notorious gate. It was time to meet the demons that had haunted me. I wanted to confront the very being that I blamed for everything—my pain, my hurt, my brokenness—in hopes that it could somehow make me whole again. 

Though I started my journey with no real sense of direction in mind, my feet just began: slowly at first but gradually picking up the pace. And they just feet kept going: one in front of the other. And then it repeated the process. One then the other. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. After what may have been miles, but could have just as easily been a few blocks, I finally had the courage to look up.

As I stood on the sidewalk, I looked across the street. At first glance it looked just like any other normal house: a door, some windows, a mailbox. Yet I instinctively knew it wasn’t, there seemed to be something off. Maybe it was the sole bedroom light on in the top left window. The strangely familiar car in the driveway, in the strangely unfamiliar location. Or maybe it was the waist high fence that went around its tiny yard with a small, yellow gate at its edge—inviting and foreboding at the same time (as facing your fears always seems to be). Eventually I cautiously walked up to the gate, ever so slowly opening it. In only ten more steps I was at the front porch, then in five more I found myself at the welcome mat, and with just another moment the doorbell would be mine to ring.

While trying to locate each and every last strand of courage within me, I abruptly noticed voices coming from the partially opened window. Mumbles at first, but later I’d come to recognize them as lovers’ sighs. They were whispered recycled phrases, lies they had told to plenty before. Promises made that had already been broken and gifts being given to someone other than their rightful owner. I stood outside hoping and wishing that just for a moment I too could enter the house and be apart of the exchange, but alas I knew it was not my fate, for I am not a violent person nor do I have the resolve to do something against my morals, so instead I opted to turn around and exit the yellow gate knowing that it was ultimately for the best.

I took the long way home that night; I had much to think about.