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 not.

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His belly got in the way. If he sucked his belly in, his chest pushed out too far. The sides of the door scraped against him and left bruises, but he could not pass through the golden door no matter what he did.

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Abriel let him try three times: the priest thought that three was a reasonable number. Each time, Finn tried desperately to see beyond the golden door, see where the other townspeople were going, but there was a golden corridor just beyond the door that turned and twisted, and beyond that he could see nothing…only the bruises on his chest and belly the next day from his three attempts.

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What always galled him was that nobody would tell him what was behind the door. Not his parents, not his best friend Celine. Nobody.

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Everyone had an excuse for why they couldn’t tell him. His parents told him to wait until he was older. Abriel the priest told him only true believers who could pass through the golden door would be able to find out.

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And Celine? Celine, a tall redheaded woman who was as thin as he was fat, would simply look at him with a sad smile. “I am sworn to secrecy,” she said one day as they sat in the village square eating a hand meal he’d prepared and watching the townspeople hurry by. 

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“We’ve known each other since you sprained your ankle that time and I took you to the healer,” Finn protested. “Surely that counts for something.”

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Celine ate another dainty bite of the hand meal. He was proud of the dish: a stew of beans and meat and sauce that was bound up in a light pastry. One could eat it anywhere, without making a mess of one’s hands or clothing. “It’s wonderful, but that’s all I can say. I’d get in trouble,” she said at last. “And someday, you’ll find out for yourself how wonderful it is.”

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He looked down at his ample proportions under the rough cloth and sighed. Then, looking at the hurried townspeople, he said, “Do they never slow down? Do they never stop to think?”

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The men and women passed before them herky-jerky, as if they were in a shadow play put on by an amateur puppeteer that had no idea how fast or slow real people walked. Wolfwater was built in such a way to encourage this: all of the streets ran straight and true, with no detours or curves. Shops and other places of business were set in from the street so that there was no reason to stop or dawdle. Finn half-closed his eyes and saw the townspeople as a blur upon the buildings. “If they could only see,” he murmured. “There is all the time in the world, if they were only to take it.”

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Celine shot him a look and got to her feet. “I have to buy my mother a bolt of cloth! I had nearly forgotten…” Then her sad smile returned. “Oh, and I am becoming one of the hurrying crowd, but I’m afraid I don’t have all the time in the world. I won’t forget you Finn, even if I outpace you.” And she was gone.

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Finn tried to return to the golden door to see if he could fit through one more time, but Abriel the priest stopped him at the door to the temple. “You are not ready to go through,” Abriel intoned. “When you are, you will be able to pass through it.”

This he spoke as if it were a mental trial, but Finn knew better. There was only one way to pass through the golden door.

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A relative passed away and left his parents some money and a house, and when Finn came of age, they helped him with his dream: turning the abandoned house into Finn’s Inn. He called it The Inn at first, since Phineas’s Inn didn’t sound right either, but everyone ended up calling it Finn’s Inn.

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At Finn’s Inn, he hosted lodgers and those who came to drink and talk and play cards. But the real purpose of Finn’s Inn, the reason he’d always dreamt of it, was to serve food. The type of food he wanted to serve. Heavy stews of lamb and goat, aromatic with spices from cities across the sea, accompanied with cream potatoes in cheese sauce and loaves of rye with freshly-churned butter that melted in the bread’s peaks and valleys.

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Wolfwater was not a large town, and it was far from the trade winds and caravans. As a result, there were few visitors, except for some merchants who passed through and left quickly once they realized the townspeople had little appetite for luxurious satiny fabrics or scented jewels.

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At first, the townspeople came out to support Finn’s Inn, and he had a crowd every night the first week. But they left their dishes piled high with uneaten food; his portions were too large. Finn tried cutting back, but by then the townspeople had decided that Finn’s Inn had seen enough of their patronage, and why should they eat at an Inn when they could eat more cheaply, more quickly, and more healthily at home?

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Celine sat at a table every night and ordered a different dish each time. He’d watch her from the bar, as she poked at the food with a spoon and took