The Door Within the Tree's Trunk

       Teddy had left his apartment very early that morning. After having awoken in his, suddenly less than comfortable, bed at 5:47 he felt a sudden urge for what others might call spontaneity, but he disagreed. He had done what he intended on doing many, many times before and, although it was not premeditated, he saw his body's rude awakening as a message. It was just letting him know that something's been added to the schedule.
       He quickly got dressed and prepared a simple breakfast of two pieces of toast and a simple turkey and roast beef sandwich with an apple for lunch. He stared at his perpetually still window, that always seemed to stare back at him, and took a deep breath as he walked towards the door. He opened his door and stepped into the stale hallway. For a moment, the smell caught his memory and he reminisced of his high school hallways in a passing thought. He came to a crossroads and, responding to a force that felt slightly thicker than air, decided that, today, the stairs would be perfect for his purpose.
      Teddy cascaded the seven stories of stairs, stepping slowly but not too slowly; just long enough to emphasize each step. On these days, he took careful advantage of every moment and enjoyed the eager anticipation that came with embarking on these trips. He took in the calm silence that he knew would be interrupted by the noisy storm of morning workers before he was even halfway through his descent. And, as he predicted, upon arriving on the bottom of the fourth floor he could hear the usual noises begin. Doors were opening and closing, romances were giving out their daily farewells and the people were chattering quietly. And then, Teddy Geisel heard three sounds in quick succession that were rather out of the ordinary. A hard thud, a screech of tires and the scream of a woman.
       He stopped. And then he listened . He listened as a crowd grew and surrounded the commotion, thus increasing the volume of their collective voices. He opened the door to the detached fire escape and picked out words from the sentences but could not gather a full story. So far he had gathered that an unnamed man had been hit by a bus. He heard witnesses yell their accounts of the story with some saying that he slipped while others were determined that he ran in front of it on his own. Teddy walked away from the excitement slightly disturbed by this anonymous man's sudden end and continued down the stairs, his step lacking the reverie it held before. Before reaching the bottom of the stairs and the adjacent back door of Watershed Heights, he thought of life and wondered if maybe, at that very moment, he was walking towards the end of his own. Though not afraid of death, Teddy had always somewhat hoped that Death would extend him the courtesy of a warning. And then he thought about that uncomfortable yet familiar feeling from that morning and questioned that, when Death did come for him, would he be able to recognize its call? And would the momentum foreshadowing his dreadful end begin with the familiar or the unknown?
         He stepped outside and the wind instantly surrounded him with a gentle breeze, calming his now-tense nerves and reminding him of his original intent. With this reminder, Teddy denied his morbid thoughts and continued across Kush Lane and into the forest, absorbing the brief subtle sunlight forming above him that would soon be covered by clouds. It started to drizzle. Teddy walked through the initial wood and over the train tracks to the final clearing before the trees became dense. On the way, he gazed at the sky every so often and during one of these glances, he heard the flapping of wings and turned to see a flock of pigeons flying with a single crow in the center. A strange sight, he thought. The rain had picked up quickly and when arrived at the bordering field, he looked up at the clouds and realized it would soon be a heavy shower. He was glad. The ceiling of treetops would serve as a suitable shelter and a surrounding wall of rain would brilliantly serve the purpose of his woodland retreat.
       As soon as he entered the deep forestry, he felt it. What he had sought after. The feeling that had pulled him out of bed was within him. The feeling of complete and utter solitude. He craved this feeling but only in moderation because he feared that he might lose it. There was something so extremely comforting about being completely hidden. That in a community, such as the one surrounding his humble abode, where everyone is everywhere, that there is a place where one can be with only himself.
       Currently, this was Teddy Geisel's one quirk. He approached his favorite tree that he always gambled to search for and began to climb. This specific tree had no significant differences from the many others around it or elsewhere within the forest but he could always tell when he found it. After climbing about twenty feet, he stopped on a sturdy branch and sat. He pulled out his turkey and roast beef sandwich and his apple and placed them beside him. He thought about the forest behind his childhood home, he thought about the first time he climbed a tree, and then he thought for a long while about Claire. While staring forward into the foliage, deep in the thought, Teddy reached over to pick up his sandwich. He missed and knocked over his apple. It fell to the ground quickly and he heard it thud to a stop. However when he looked to the ground, the apple had disappeared from sight. He picked up his sandwich, this time with no trouble, and thought, And so concludes Apple's inevitable fate. Then Teddy Geisel took a bite.

Habitual Rituals

        Teddy stood from his relaxed position in his bed that morning and tried to focus on what he had to do that day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Pick up eggs. Visit Claire... He was not looking forward to that but, as they say, old habits...
         He walked to the window and gazed out, his eyes fixed on the grass below. He focused his vision intently but abstained from processing that which he viewed, effectively procrastinating even the planning of any actual work. However, everything that rises must converge and after a few moments of peaceful indulgence, his routine lack of thought was disturbed by an unfortunate looking man with a routine lack of clothing. Regrettably, this visual encounter had also become increasingly periodic. The stranger's anatomy had been making appearances at least twice a week now in, what Teddy considered, his very own back yard. So rude, he thought.
        After dressing and sufficiently preparing for the expected atmosphere outside, Teddy Geisel departed from his "cozy" home and began his 10-minute walk to Deena's for breakfast, just as he did every Sunday. Teddy had recognized his life's gradual turn towards the monotonous and perhaps led to it intentionally, if not consciously. In his mind, the well established day-to-day was considered comfortable, not boring. He arrived in the lobby and continued to think about the nature of monotony. It was as if the old adage that practice makes perfect applied to life and that his forever repeating loops would eventually, and gradually, lead to a form of mastery in his small corner of the universe.
        As he walked away from the sound of Ms. Pigg's sousaphone, Teddy thought that he'd done pretty well for himself. Relatively.

Ante Meridium

            It was fifteen minutes past six in the morning when the only living thing in Apt. #716 awoke. For the next twenty minutes, he remained in bed, completely motionless, recognizing his cluttered surroundings with his mind's eye. He drifted in and out of dreams, careful not to be swept back into deep sleep, and eventually found himself thinking about the past. He did not trouble his mind with any specific memory of his own past at that moment, but with the complex notion of the past itself and it's unyielding grasp on his present and, more fearfully he thought, on his future. The man, still silent, still serenely supine, then thought of when he had thrown trash into the river near his house as a youth. It wasn't because he contained a desire to do it. He was just young and lazy. Unconcerned.
            While these thoughts became situated in his conscience, behind the biological curtains in front of his eyes, the darkness that had consumed his room every night for the past thirty-four years slowly transformed once again into the light-bluish hue of morning. Very slightly tinting everything it could reach as the sun ascended on the horizon opposite his room's only window, which, by some past fault, was stuck shut. Finally, Teddy Geisel opened his eyes.
            Teddy had always appreciated these instants in the morning. The world, or his world at least, was all so calm. So unexcited. There were no thoughts of war or betrayal or revenge. Everybody was just simply pleased. Not happy, of course. It was much too early for happy. But pleased. Pleased with their selves, pleased with their children, pleased that they didn't die in their sleep the night before because the constant possibility of it had always nagged them. Or maybe not. He could be wrong. Teddy had embraced his own fallibility long ago. Just one of those things, he supposed.
            Outside, the birds had begun to chirp and responding to their cue, Teddy rose from his fixed position and sat on the side of his bed and surveyed his apartment. He had liked it at first. Somewhat. He had been shopping for shelter at Watershed Heights for a reason. The ceiling was a little lower than he wished and had that terrible, prickly texture that he'd never understood. What seemed like thousands of little projects and ambitions, all started but none completely finished, lay abandoned on the floor and had ruined the space's chance to be cozy and instead bordered it on claustrophobic.
            Teddy looked at his mirror on the wall. He still had some of the youthful qualities of his face, which he was thankful for, and his eyes still contained a bit of the twinkle he had been known for in his teenage years. His long, or long-ish, blond hair was unkempt and intentionally so. He had never given much care towards that sort of thing. He just never understood it. As he continued to gaze at his reflection, a housefly flew in circles and landed on his emulated face. He thought about his life.
            "Maybe next time." His reflection said with a steady and unwavering stare. And for just a moment, Teddy Geisel's mind went blank.