Late Night Escapade

“Okay. The coast is clear.”

“Let’s do this.”

The three of us tumble out of the front seat of the car and rush to the back, popping open the hatch of the SUV and pulling out a door. Yes, a door. Inside a door frame. Three by six and a half feet of wood that we somehow squeezed in the vehicle so that we could sneak it onto campus.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” Jimmy urges. We shut the hatch and on a “one-two-heave” pick up the door and make our way onto the campus green, which is empty this late at night and mostly dark except for a few lamp posts.

“Over here.”

We shuffle to a corner of the green closest to two of the residence halls and set the door down, upright, near one of the lamp posts. As silent and fast as mice, we scurry off to hide behind some nearby hedges.

“Is the camera on?”

“Just a second… Yup, we’re a-go!”

“Ok.” The camera turns to Jimmy for a second. “It’s Friday night just before 2 a.m. The weather is perfect. Our team won the football game earlier so everyone’s out right now partying and getting trashed. That door over there we got from our neighbor who was throwing it out. We’ve decided to repurpose it for the night. It’s says ‘DOOR TO NARNIA,’ and we’re going to see how all the drunk people stumbling back to campus will react.”

We then turn off the camera to preserve the battery, only turning it on when people appear.

We don’t have to wait long. The first batch of people stumbles back from the bars—a couple of girls and guys, yelling and shrieking nonsense.

“Look! There’s a door!” Yells one of the girls. She half runs, half hobbles on her high heels to the door, walks around it a few times, then stops in front of it.

Her friends come join her.

“Open it! Open it!” So one of them does.

“It doesn’t go anywhere.” They’re all bummed for a brief second then one of the guys steps through the door, clearly expecting something to happen.

“Still nothing!” Now they are disgruntled. The same guy who failed to make it to Narnia slams the door shut. It teeters for a second but thankfully doesn’t fall.

“Let’s go. I gotta pee,” whines one the girls.

“And my heels are killing me,” whines the other.

So the troupe trudges off into the night.

A dozen more people go through the same experience with the same reactions. One girl is so upset she screams at the door for a good five minutes until someone yells at her from a window of one of the residence halls.

After an hour we’re getting bored and tired and the hilarity of the joke has died. Just as we’re about to pack it up, though, one lone guy makes his way to the door. Clearly inebriated beyond any kind of functionality, it takes him some time to understand what the sign on the door means. Once he does, he grins and does a little jig.

“Shhhweeeet,” he slurs. Opening the door, he steps through then pauses. He looks around, scratches his head, and then grins again.

“I’m in Narnia!” He shouts in glee before starting to sprint across the green. “Aslan! Where’s Aslan!”

“Quick, let’s follow him!” Suggests Jimmy, so we take off after the surprisingly quick drunkard.

“Aslan!” And wouldn’t you know it? The kid had found “Aslan.”

We can’t help but laugh out loud. The drunk has stopped in front of Halwitz Hall where stand two stone lions. He has thrown his arms around one and is crying, “Aslan! I knew I’d find you here!”

We capture it all on film and then leave drunk and lion alone. With no one around, we load up the door and head home for the night.

“I just realized something,” says Jimmy as we relax in our living room with our beers. It’s a little after 3:30 a.m. “What if that kid comes back looking for the door? He’s going to think he’s trapped in Narnia now!”

We all laugh. “Well, at least he’ll have Aslan!”