The Silence Key

I describe elsewhere how I have re-discovered the benefits of breath-holding and silent breathing. Now, I dreamt that, when my wife and I arrived home from town, our keys would not open the door. Indeed, there was not even a keyhole.

I rang the door-bell, and then looked around for pebbles, in case Diarmuid was wearing his ear-phones and would not hear the bell.

But Diarmuid heard the bell all right and came and opened the door.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"O, there was something wrong with the door," said Diarmuid, "so I called Magog, and he put in a new door lock. Look, here's the master key," and he opened a little key safe that had been attached to the inside wall, wherein sat the "master key."

The Master Key was like a small paper-clip enclosed in see-through, solid plastic.

"Gosh," I thought, "So small, it would be lost in your pocket (or hand-bag)." But, then I saw it had a hole to which a key-ring could be fixed, so that was all right.

"Where's the key=hole?" I asked, for I could not see one.

"O no," said Diarmuid. "There's no key-hole. The Master Key is used to register the users. Once a user is registered, the lock automatically recognises him or her and automatically opens the door."

"So, how is a user registered?"

"Show the Master Key to the lock. When it clicks, state the user's Code Name, look into the lock and breathe normally for a minute."

"Normally?"

"Yes, no panting, snorting or snuffling."

"But, what is normal?"

"Remember," said Diarmuid, "Silent Breathing is the Key."

"And Code Name?"

"Well," said Diarmuid, "we could use Frank, Tess, Dermo, Tom, Neef, Shinner, Ron ..."

"Okay, give me the Master Key and I will try to register myself."

I showed the Master Key to the lock. Ir went click. I stood close to the lock and said "Krunchy." Then I  looked steadily at the lock, breathing silently for a minute, and was duly registered.

"Supposing there is an emergency, and people, who are not registered, want to get out?

"In that case," said Diarmuid, "There is an emergency Code Word anybody can use to open the door. I have registered 'Emerge' as the emergency Code Word."

We went in, and I found a letter addressed to me inside. 

"O No!" I exclaimed, "another medical appointment." This time it was an appointment at a clinic for a Metabolic Test, whatever that means.

I went to the clinic, and found I was to sit at a card table on an upright chair and answer a book of questions. There were about three hundred A4 sized pages in the book. This will take three hours, I thought. But soon I found that every question in the book had the same answer. Silent Breathing was the key, and I flew through the test, giving a silent breath as the answer to every question.