Once upon a time there was a man with

a small doorknob growing from his head.

Wherever he walked he felt eyes longing

to turn the handle, saw friends pretend

not to notice, saw the mailman refuse to

acknowledge the doorknob’s presence as

it protruded from his forehead, slightly

to the right and up, its soiled brass base

permeated through his pale skin.

He had played out the countless scenes

in his mind the knocks of knuckles asking

is there anyone home? The endless puns

involving keys and locks and vacancies,

and even a dream in which men the size

of Lilliputters from Gulliver’s Travels

had posted for sale signs from his hair,

and inhabited his facial orifices.

But one day he locked eyes with a one-

toothed girl. She gazed back from her

small wheeler. The two smiled, then

laughed. And the baby girl walked over

to him. She pulled on his face, stretching

out his many wrinkles, and as she did

the man realized that there was no

doorknob, that there had never been

a doorknob.