It starts out as curiosity—the temptation to peek behind the door. Just one look and maybe that will be enough to satisfy it. But that’s never going to happen because the door is always locked. They know what they’re doing.

Before long, the desire has grown so sharp it’s difficult to sleep through. Nothing dulls the pain. I carry it everywhere I go.

I begin to have the same dream, night after night... Someone opens the door for me and I turn to thank them, but they’re gone. A stranger who has done me an enormous kindness, perhaps without even knowing.

I don’t have time to think about it because the clock’s ticking. I’m taking in the palm leaf wallpaper, inhaling the scent of lilies, knowing that at any moment they will spot me, eject me back to the streets.

It happens all too soon. And I wake to a smell that isn’t lilies, to walls that aren’t palm leaves, and to bones that ache and creak. The longing becomes hostile in those moments; I hatch all kinds of plots, none of which will see the light of day.

And then one night in my dream, everything changes. The stranger reveals her face to me and suddenly the way forward is clear.

Maybe there’s a way inside, a way of staying longer, after all.