https://purplequeennl.blogspot.com/2023/02/mid-week-flash-challenge-week-281.html

The Blue Door

It was the day, the day I feared most every year. Atlas had less weight on his shoulders than I had on mine as this day approached.

The blue door was in my nightmares, so real, so terrifying, as I climbed the steps in my dreams the door grew larger, more menacing, but those were just dreams.

In life it was worse.

One day a year, just one day but it overshadowed the other 364, I had to check the door.

The wolf is at the door, hungry like the wolf, wolf in sheep's clothing, cry wolf, like a pack of wolves howling in the night the nonsense collection of wolf idioms ran through her mind. Why wolves? She was hungry and wolves are supposed to be ravenous, must be the reason why. The door to her room was locked, not to keep the wolves at bay but to keep her inside with the pack howling in her head. A white room, no windows, a light behind a steel screen overhead, a low bed and thin mattress, a stainless steel basin and the locked door. The walls weren't actually padded but they may well have been, this was the proverbial padded cell. She didn't remember walking into the room, it was as if she had always been here. With the wolves. Howlin' Wolf, Wolfman Jack, Werewolf of London, her hair wasn't perfect, she was sure of that. How did Lon Chaney Jr. stand all that makeup? Lobo the sad wolf who died of a broken heart. She cried, tears running down her cheeks, a little pack of wolves. The light went out, she sat in the dark listening to the howls.