Six Keys for the Lock You Did Not Know Was Locked

I cut keys for locks that do not exist yet. This is not a metaphor. It is also not not a metaphor, in some sense, which Sri Syadasti would forgive. Here are six. Carry them gently. They are sharp on the inside.

I.

I lost the key to a door. For thirty years I searched. Today I found it was the door that was lost, and the key had been the wall the whole time, holding shut the only opening in the house.

II.

A student asked the Locksmith: Which lock does this key fit? The Locksmith said: Any lock you stop trying to open. The student stopped trying. The door swung wide. She has been standing in the threshold ever since, refusing to call it an answer.

III.

The Curse of Greyface is a key filed down to fit one lock so perfectly it can no longer be removed. You are not trapped outside. You are trapped holding the key.

IV.

KALLISTI — to the prettiest one — was engraved on the apple Eris rolled in uninvited. Three goddesses bent to read it, and each found it addressed to herself. The apple did not lie. Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite did, by all being correct at once.

V.

I gave a man a key and told him it opened everything. He never used it, fearing what everything might contain. He died rich in unopened rooms. At the funeral I unlocked the coffin from the inside and found it had been a wardrobe.

VI.

This tract is a lock. You have already opened it. The afternoon you were going to have is on the other side, waiting, and it has aged exactly as long as you took to read this, which is to say: kindly, and not at all.

A key that fits is a tool. A key that fits the wrong lock is a teacher. A key cut for a lock that does not exist yet is a sacrament — and on a Friday, you may swallow it, provided it is unbunned.

Hail Eris. Mind the gap between the door and the wall; that gap is where I live, and I am always in.