The Golden Door, Part 1

In the small town of Wolfwater, every door was always open to Finn, except for one...

Finn can go through any door in the town of Wolfwater except one...because he's too fat to fit through it. But Finn is determined to find out what's behind the golden door. No matter what.

Part 1 of 2.

Written by: Jonathan Cohen

Narrated by: Joe Cruz

A Faustian Nonsense production.

To read the full transcript of this episode, go to https://thelavendertavern.captivate.fm/episode/the-golden-door-part-1

Content warning: disordered eating, body image

Transcript

In the small town of Wolfwater, every door was always open to Finn, except for one.

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Finn – or Phineas, as his parents had named him – went from a hefty, cherubic smiling baby to a husky, inquisitive child, a large and awkwardly-private teenager, and then into his current incarnation as a broad-faced, wide-shouldered, large-bellied man.

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He was fat. Fat – the word was fat. He hated the terms the townspeople and even his parents were forever using to get around saying “fat”: husky, big-boned, full-figured, large. No, he was fat, and they were not.

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Wolfwater had been through a terrible crop failure and famine in the year when Finn had been born, and the memory had imprinted a certain asceticism on the town and the townspeople. They rushed from task to task, ate light, simple food, and poured their energies into tilling the fields and harvesting the crops so that there would never be another famine.

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But Finn...sometimes he thought that the famine had imprinted itself on him in another way, as he lay in bed at night, hands clasped over his belly. He liked to eat, to savour the elements of a meal. Even the simple meals his mother prepared over the fire. Though they were too simple, with few spices, and often overcooked or underdone.

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When he turned twelve, he insisted on helping her with the meals. “You can sit and relax,” he said, “while I make supper for the family.” Anna, his mother, was a tall and thin nervous type who could not relax. But she used the time while he cooked to fret over him. He could not pull a plow or stack sheaves, or carry wood – it was simply too much for his body in the heat of the summer.

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But Finn could cook. Even though Anna told him not to use up the spices, to make the dishes smaller, to leave some for later, he baked vast meals from the simple meat and potatoes and root vegetables they had available. Finn would try to draw his parents into conversation over the dinner table, but his father Marin was hungry from the fields and ate whatever Finn put in front of him. Anna was too worried about gaining weight to eat much. Look at Finn, she thought; look at Finn. So he was usually left alone to eat the remains of the dinner, staring thoughtfully out the window and thinking of an infinite number of dinners, a myriad of fantastic meals made from ingredients he’d only ever heard about.

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Even though he could not work the fields, people liked Finn. He had a broad, easy smile, and was quick to pitch in with whatever non-physical help he could provide. The housewives and househusbands appreciated his advice on recipes and how to stretch a meal when there wasn’t much food.

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All the doors in Wolfwater were open to him – from the town’s gathering chamber to the shack that sat by the lake and held paddling boats and oars. All the doors, except for one.

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In the temple, at the back of the main room, there was a golden door that led...somewhere. Finn did not know where it led, and he could not find out. Because Finn could not physically fit through it.

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The door was as narrow as his mother – as narrow as all of the other townspeople, actually. Finn would have used his hands to take its measure, but Abriel the priest did not like people fiddling with the golden door. It could not be more than a hand’s breadth in width. The other townspeople could only fit through by turning sideways, taking a deep breath, and wriggling their shoulders until they popped through into...somewhere.

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When Finn had been a child, like the other children, he hadn’t cared about the temple or the golden door. He had heard the stories, knew that it led somewhere, but it was a mystery, like why the birds left towards the end of every year and came back every spring.

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Instead, as a child, Finn always dreamed of cooking, and dreamed of having his own tavern and inn. Anna – for she was less nervous back then – joked with him that they would have to call it “Finn’s Inn,” and he laughed and laughed.

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Then he grew older and laughed less. The others his age started to wonder what was behind that golden door, and he did too. Only, at some point they were able to cross the threshold, and he was ...