Korridorium

♫ Gömul speki ♫

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I enter the corridor. This narrow passage leading to the former coal cellar is the place where I set my small musings on life to paper. It smells musty here; it is cramped, plain, and dim. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, inspiration strikes me here with beautiful regularity. It is almost as if an alien, wiser hand were guiding my pen. I have placed an old wooden office chair on casters in the corner, next to the cobweb-draped wooden partition—and a candle on a narrow stone ledge in the wall. The ledge is pierced by a series of small, enigmatic holes that may have once served to hang tools, fetishes, or instruments of torture.

Here, my notebook and pen holder await. Here, I write—beginning with the three-quarter chime of the grandfather clock from the Biedermeier rooms above, muffled as it drifts down to me. I jot down my thoughts, the booklet resting on my knees, only to drop my pen precisely at the one o’clock chime, blow out the candle, ascend the stairs, and then, without further ado, retire to bed.