"Thirty to Life"

Someone was knocking at the door. And in the distance, Lynda could vaguely hear the telephone ringing like a banshee's wail. Lazily, she opened her eyes a crack and gazed drowsily at the television screen, which lit the room in eerie shades of blue and green.

"We know you're in there," a policeman shouted on her screen. "Open the door!"

On the screen, a flimsy door was toppled by a sturdy officer of the law, just as the knocking at Lynda's door stopped. She could hear the soft patter of feet shifting outside her apartment door, the jiggle of her doorknob as someone checked the lock, and an audible sigh.

"There's nobody here," said a woman's voice from beyond the confines of the cramped apartment. "Let's go."

"No," a man's voice answered. "She's here." And then, louder, it called, "Come on, now, open up!"

"Go away," she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut and knowing exactly what they wanted, and why. She felt bruised, tattered, and drowned. She wanted to close her eyes and sleep forever. She wanted to close the shades tighter and shut out the world, refusing to acknowledge this bitter truth that stood knocking at her door.

"For petessake," another voice grumbled at the door, dimmed slightly by a jingle-laden ad blaring across the television screen. "She's not home. We can try this-"

"I said no. I know she's in there."

"Look," said a new voice, and Lynda could hear the sound of someone running their hand over the top of her doorframe. "The spare key's gone."

"See," the man's voice growled. "She knew we were coming." Then more pounding at the door and the man's voice shouting, "You're only prolonging the inevitable, you know! Open . . . this . . . door!"

Lynda grabbed a throw pillow from its temporary home beneath the couch and pressed it hard over her head. The world had changed over night, and she couldn't face it. Not now . . . not today. In her mind she conjured the image of her kitchen calendar, numbers in June crossed out in blood red ink leading up to this moment. No, she thought to herself, no.

"Open the door!"

No, no, no, no, no . . .

Then another shuffling at the door, and a new voice saying, "Got the landlady here, clear a path." Then a scraping at the door, the sliding of a key into the locking mechanism of the door, and a demoralizing click, and light flooded in from the hallway.

"Lynda Mosca," a voice called, "come out with your hands up!"

This is it, Lynda thought, uncurling herself from the couch and standing up, shoulders slouched, body weighed down into a slump. She put on a face somewhere between a smile and a grimace, and stepped into the light, hands raised above her head in defeat.

"Okay," she said in a conquered voice. "Okay, I give up."

They rushed her, and she felt hands grasping her at every angle. She felt herself wrestled to the ground, the weight of several bodies on top of her own, and gasped to recapture her stolen breath. And then, despite herself, she let out a loud laugh.

"Happy birthday!" came the cry from the bodies sprawled over her own. She grinned and crawled from beneath the pile of tangled limbs to stare at the people now giggling madly on her floor.

"Yeah, happy," she replied.

"Thirty years young, right, Lynda?" the man whose voice had boomed at her door said, and Lynda watched a smile spread clear across his face. As his smile grew, Lynda's faded, and she once again felt a little life sucked out of her, like a candle snuffed out atop the birthday cake she knew one of these friends of hers had tucked away in his or her car.

"Right," she said, resigned to her fate. "Thirty."