The Latchkey Project

Steve burst into Pam and Ben’s living room last night wearing a cacophany of dollar store items. I happen to know this because he bellowed as much as soon as the door shut behind him.

“Everything in my costume cost a dollar or less!! Thank you, Dollar Store!!!”

As we all slowly grew accustomed to the crazy patterned fabric draping his form like a verdant muumuu, & the … well, OK, the not-a-straw-hat with bats and other creatures hanging from it, we realized a monkey was in mid-chest-thump right above his forehead. A tiny blonde doll looking glassy and petrified was stuck somewhere in the middle of the mountainous chaos above and to the left of the monkey.

“I …” he intoned dramatically, “am SKULL ISLAND!!!!!!!“

I believe we were roused into applause, because, c’mon. Even the material draped over him like a miscalculated jungle was only one dollar. As a costume meant for an Oscar party, he shone and dazzled. And dangled. And rustled.

And after about two minutes, he said, “OK, you’ve all seen this right? I can take this off? My gawd, this thing is uncomfortable. I am wearing an island, people.” He huffed off upstairs to change, and a few minutes later I saw Ben carefully place the hat piece with Kong and Watts on a side table. Reverentially.

You’ll have to forgive my confusion, then, over what happened approximately three hours later. Julie, during a commercial break, conversationally asked me about the key ’round my neck. I announced that it was the Annecy Key, and that I was rather lazily looking for the lock to which it belonged.

“I’ve been told,” I said conspiratorially, “that the original owner of the key will reveal its secrets if I ask him what his philosophy of breakfast is.”

After a moment, I thought perhaps if I donned Skull Island, I might not get such a blank, uncomprehending stare mixed with a slight tinge of derision for my troubles.

Despite distances, sometimes our experiences are oddly similar. I was reading Krystyn’s latest post, and laughed. The first day I wore 7Li3 to work, laced around my neck on this silly string that, for the love of christ, will not stay tied (I’ve been forced to put SuperQuadrupleKnot in it and then hope my cat assists me in the chewing of it off later. I like the silky cord, I do. I just want it to be a bit more conducive to tying.), someone asked me a similar question:

“Is that the key to your heart?”

Eh! Crap! Were I more sentimental or not so afraid of coming across as a weenie little girl who reads cheesy romance novels (no really, some of them are good. Ok, not “good.” They’re “decent.”), I might have replied “Why yes, isn’t it lovely?”

But no. Staving off the redness filling my cheeks, I did my usual “face-saving” method of self-deprecating humor.

“Ha ha. Uhm, no. My heart is not big enough for this key. It is actually very very small. And also very black. Like my soul.”

I wanted to say something more pithy. I wanted to get all The Princess Bride and say how it’s the key to my giant boxer style metal chastity belt, but alas, I was already too embarassed to get that punchy. The conversation moving directly from the size of my very tiny black heart to how much bacteria do you grow in a culture ended my trip and prevented (perhaps beneficially) further discussion of the key.

It’s difficult. I want to try and explain the project when people ask about the key, but the looks I get sometimes when trying to explain any of the projects and games I’m involved with doesn’t always make it a fun thing to explain.

Hot damn, though. I can think myself up a good story to amuse. It’s an adventure and a project in itself.

The Express Mail envelope was shoved, smashed and twisted into the tiny hole my apartment complex likes to call a mailbox. Mail. Ha. It holds “a” letter in its better moments. I hoped that the goodness held inside wasn’t smooshed into tiny bits, but then I decided that was silly, as it’s a piece of metal, you dinkus.

It’s made my fingers smell metal-y, like nickels do. It’s #7 in the Lithium Series.  The key itself claims to be #3, and has tattooed that onto itself. 7Li3.
It’s long enough that I can picture stabbing into the forehead of that obnoxiously chiclet-toothed Englishman on The Apprentice, saving the world from poncy scum like him.

Perhaps this key doesn’t unlock a door or a chest or a lock at all. Perhaps this key is the key to unlock my superpowers and people-saving abilities.

Ahoy, Pond Scum! Tremble in fear before me! *brandishes key* Don’t make me use this!

The very first interaction I had with my co worker Tiffany was not favorable.

She is a put-together petite girl of some presence. She has the delicate features and refinement that comes from pampering. Not only does that get a girl a few martinis bought for her at her favorite bar, but Tiffany possesses that go-get-em brashness that all superhero saleswomen possess.

I’m just the switchboard operator. And on a day when I was also playing the role of receptionist at the main lobby to our headquarters, one would think that these dual menial roles would multiply together. The mathematical equation of my importance and relevance in Tiffany’s greater world view would be expressed as zero times zero.

Perhaps I was being a little quick to jump the gun that first day, as I don’t tend to meet entitlement complexes with dismissiveness as a rule. At any rate, I was wary of her ever after, of having to expend energy on someone who so visibly thrives in a corporate setting.

But the other day she came to the front desk when I was (once again) covering the Receptionist’s break, and although most of her blonde professionally streaked hair personal trainer bronzed makeup tanning bed skin aura still came rolling off of her in Aveda-scented waves, she seemed softer, more relaxed. More … real?

And she gestured to the key hanging around my neck, and quipped, “The key to someone’s heart?” I had just enough time to pull forth a sincere smile from my emergency store and flash it at her. I then made a moue and said, “Ah, no, not me.”

I quickly tried to explain that I was trying to find the actual lock, but not really trying, and at the same time she rambled off an apology — the cacophany of our laughing voices colliding that she was just joking, and I was just taking the joke in stride, and no, really, who’d want to have a key like that hanging about their neck, anyway? The key to someone’s heart, indeed!
Albatross!

Such a heart-key would have to be fingers intertwined. The lock itself is a visionary peek into the world on the other side of the door. Teeth of fingers, twisting and accomodating and compromising, turning the tumblers, clicking into place, freeing, opening. Keyhole and keystone and skeleton dance ’til death do you part.

Instead, I’ve got this piece of metal, on satin cord. Inert, shiny.

Very shiny.

The key that found its way onto my keychain is #7, the Miraskill Key of the Hydrogen series. Historians and fact-finders tell me it was given this name by the original owner and was recently found chained to the front wheel of an abandoned bicycle. It spent time on the Trans Siberian Railroad. Many passengers between Vladivostok and St. Petersburg have heard stories of its better days. At least one person who knows what the key unlocks will reveal the truth only if I introduce myself as a distant relative of a famous historical figure.

The following is reprinted from my personal blog:

Since [Kim and I] live in the land of Victorian houses and antique furniture, I figured our chances of successful lock-openage would be slightly higher than in many places throughout the rest of the country. The keys arrived yesterday and because it was raining pretty heavily, I decided to constrain my first day of adventuring to the house. There are several locks in the house that were likely candidates. First, I tried the back door.

The key was too small. Then, I tried my office door.

The key was too big. Then, I tried the bathroom and bedroom doors.

  

The size was just right. (This is starting to sound like a story with three bears and a little cat-burglar blonde, right?) Unfortunately, the key would not turn.

There was no chance of it fitting in either of the chests used as bedside tables. While I have lost the keys to those long ago, they are fortunately already unlocked. (And, as an aside, can be locked and unlocked with the aid of a paperclip.) I took a break, as I was weary from all of this adventuring, and allowed my monkey butler to hold the key for safe keeping.

Unfortunately, my simian servant was easily outsmarted and the cat ran off with the key. I am not sure what is more funny: that he grabbed the key and ran, or that he kept “tripping on his shoelaces” (stepping on the cord, causing the key to fall out of his mouth.)

1.1 MB, 15 seconds, H.264 Quicktime movie

There is a statue on my desk. He’s a little red imp called Seamus. Normally he holds a bottle of perfume, but lately he has been holding my key. That means I can look at him and all the other odd things on my desk and it reminds me in some small way there is more to my world than this room, this desk. Occasionally the kitten will sniff at it. It is a thin, skinny, yet durable key. It is as long as my fingers.

My exposure to people to ask about my key is limited, doubly so living in the highly backwards south. But this key, its motivation, to go talk to people, and get out of this shell and this rut and this hiding hermitness that I am so very, very good at. So when I go out I do wear it. No one asks, but it does keep the odder looking people away from me. That’s a bonus.

I’m in a moment of whimsy. There is spontaneously bought ice cream in the freezer, anime on my PSP, and the mixed perfume scent of my hoodie makes me happy because work is done for today. Wikipedia, here I come, I need a clue, I need something - and then I notice the page I have read so many times over has been edited:

Bates and his wife Joan no longer live on Sealand, having left the day-to-day operation to their son Michael. Sadly Bates died peacefully in his sleep on 31st of January 2006 of Prader-Willi syndrome.

Maybe he never knew about the key. But I am a bit sad, for a man I never met, who would have been interesting to talk to, just because he in some way, was connected tangentally to this key. I put my key on tonight. I’m not sure why.

Still I hear you (that unspecific you,  not you the reader) calling, someone, and we are both saying the same thing: Hello, hello? Are you out there? Who are you, anyway?

I think I am more hopeful than krystyn today even in light of this turn of events, and in a few weeks I will bring her my key so she can touch it for good luck or something and we can discuss it over a nice long cup of something.

I know you’re out there, but where?

I’ve been remembering to wear my key. There was a day shortly after I received it in the mail from Jane and Kiyash where I had forgotten it. I knew where it was, exactly: hanging on the hook on the back of my kitchen door.

Truth be told, I felt a little lost without it.

But today was sort of a terrible day. The kind of a day where you yourself are really doing alright, especially in the Grand Scheme of Things, but practically everyone around you is inhabiting some strange, alternate world where assholery is the new cool.

I was on the bus, on the final leg of my daily commute home, when I caught a glimpse of the key peeking out from my coat. I felt this sick sort of jolt as I realized that even though the chances of my finding either the lock or the person who owned the key were practically nil, it could still happen, and that person who had last turned the key in a lock could be a Grade A jerk.

There’s so much romanticization of what’s ‘around the corner,’ yeah? The new dawn of a tomorrow, pregnant with possibilities. The new project, the new job, the new boyfriend, the new place to vacation: all filled with hope.

But the person who held the Annecy Key, they could be quite a foul specimin of human. Dark, moody. Perhaps he kicks puppies. Maybe she hates people who wear corduroy pants.

There are those of us who give the benefit of the doubt beyond all reasonable expectations, and forget to keep cached a reminder that things may not turn out quite so rosy in the end.

I’m not superstitious about this key, don’t get me wrong. But I do kinda wonder now if the previous owner was someone I would have liked at all.

My key is heavy, substantial, and slightly scratched at its teeth. It’s a shiny key, cutting a sharp profile in this world full of keys, and yet it is smooth to the touch, some of its edges worn. It appears to have been cast from a very clean mold. It is a well-made key. It hangs on a black satin cord, and is #3 of 16, in the Hydrogen series.

The key was found in the breastpocket of a 1930’s tuxedo jacket unclaimed in a dry cleaner’s in Tokyo. My key has apparently traveled far to me. Maybe it’s trying to get back home?There is a single person in the world who has sworn to reveal what this key unlocks, but only if asked about his or her philosophy of breakfast. Well, hm. I haven’t been too brave thus far about quizzing people about their feelings on link sausage, and how they relate empirically to the divine essence of fresh-squeezed orange juice, but I’ve always been a wuss about a meal I tend to skip.

The lock must have been a right doozy - my clue sheet informs me that the key has only been used once - to close the lock. The scratches in the metal make me wonder who else has been wearing this key around, or maybe it spent time on a huge jailer’s ring, co-mingling and jingling merrily with many other keys …

My key is on a tan string and called “Alice’s Broken Finger Key #4 (of 16)”, the Hydrogen Series.
My key is named “Alice’s Broken Finger” by its original owner.
It was found at the bottom of a well.
This key spent time in Sealand. Many associates of Paddy Roy Bates remember its better days.
At least one person who knows what this key unlocks has sworn never to tell unless spoken to in rhyme.

Oh boy, I’m sure in for an adventure.