Leaves fall from the banana tree, I realize I'm not sure that I'm sure how to spell banana. I watch the sun make the leaves translucent, like large glowing emeralds. I sit by the window hearing the sounds of my apartment hallway, a TV softly mumbling to itself, an occasional creak of the old walls, a door opening and closing and footsteps walking out. The crickets outside the window are already humming on this summer's night, a warm night, cooling only in the darkest hours of morning. The red carpets line the halls, black doors spaced evenly amidst the river of red flowing down the center. Each black door leads to some other world. One has a staircase, and at the bottom step falls off into the sky, one holds behind it a jungle, full if beatles and vines and trees, so thick you can practically see it growing before you. Behind another lies a throne, a large cathedral of a room, with a queen with a sour face like she just sucked the juice of a bag of lemons. Behind another black door is a lions cage, where Tiveti, the lion is sleeping, behind another a circus of red and gold and elephants doing cartwheels, behind another a castle covered in vines and snow, where a red rosebush grows bravely right in front. Behind another black door is a painting that you can step right into, feel and hear the squish of the painted flowers in your hands, the green pigments mixing with the orange and red, and dripping down your arm. Behind another is a wizard, and across the hall, behind another black door there is a witch. Enemies they are now, once the best of friends. Engaged in a magical war, you don't want to be in the hallway whe these two meet by chance. You might go up in smoke. And behind my door, in a white white room, is me. And I just sit and watch these things. And write them down. -KS