The Knock at My Door
by Carl Nelson (July 2026)
A small girl appeared at my office door, of perhaps three or four years of age. My office is in our detached garage, and I stepped outside to see what she wanted. I’d never seen her before. There was no one else around either up or down the street. I looked carefully up and down the street, even checking the nearby parked cars, suspecting some sort of scam. Are you selling something? I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
She dug in a small pink silk bag closed with a ribbon which doubled as her purse. In it were various things, like castoffs you might find walking around: an articulated toy skeleton of a fish, a partially deflated balloon, and some other seemingly broken portions of things. Whatever she was peddling, these weren’t the sort of things a scammer would offer. These were definitely things that a three year old might have found while walking around. “I’m trying to find money for my family,” she said. “Would you like something?”
“Where are your parents?” I asked.
She motioned across the street and into the next block. There were several small homes and apartments with unsettled tenants there. As small as she was, it didn’t seem right for her to be walking about unaccompanied, even if her family were only a block away.
“Why don’t you pick me out something you think I would like,” I said. “I don’t have my money. You stay right here and I’ll be back.” My wallet was inside my jacket in the main house. When I came back, she had decided I should have the jointed fish. I was debating whether to give her a one or a five. But when I looked in the wallet all I had was a fifty.
“I can’t give you a fifty,” I said. So I gave her all the change I had in my pocket, which amounted to sixty some cents. It was a bit embarrassing. I’d hoped to be more generous. She was a very pleasant little girl.
She took it and walked back home, I suppose. When I turned around she was gone. I thought this all seemed strange. This nicely dressed girl in a black frock, as if coming from church with a cross necklace, appearing out of nowhere to knock on my office door. How did she know I was in here? Quiet yet deliberate, she knocked, then waited. Then she seemingly vanished. For someone to appear who says she lives nearby, whom I’ve never seen in the many years we’ve been here, and then to make a request and then vanish was curious, to say the least.
I’d thought about accompanying her home to check her story, to check in with her parents, to check what her situation was and why she was left to wander the neighborhood alone. It’s a safe, quiet neighborhood (at least for me), but still… Three felons live within a block’s radius and there’s a pit bull every block or so which get loose.
On the other hand, she was so much like a mystical visitation that I was loathe to break the spell. I’d rather turn the event over in my head a while, before trying to authenticate it. It just seemed too much ordinary social work to run it right down and maybe solve the mystery. Maybe the parents were broke and needed money. What would I do then? Or they might spin it and ask why I had given a little girl money? The magic would have dissipated and I’d have a problem. It wasn’t as though she didn’t look cared for or hungry. She was neatly dressed with a calm demeanor. A lot of details were pressing me to enjoy it as a mysterious visitation, rather than an opportunity to intervene.
I liked the idea that while laboring in my anonymity in my ordinary existence, that a miracle might walk up to my door. Isn’t this what writers are always imagining; that a bright light will open in their prose, and they’ll hear a knock, knock! I mean, one reason I spend so much time out here secluded in my garage office is that I like mystery better than ordinary life.
I decided I’d walk the dog up that way at afternoon’s end to see what I saw. I really doubted that I would see anything. But it would be a diversion. And I did just that. After finishing up my efforts for the day in my office I altered the walk my dog and I took so as to explore down the street where it seemed the small girl had indicated her family lived. But there was no one around. And I heard no voices of children playing nor signs of adults. The street was empty as a Di Chirico painting. Just silent homes and open garages.
That’s the way it is with mysterious events such as this one. (Oh, I’ve had them before.) They neither seem to spring from anything previous nor point to any event following. That is they are not prophetic; they do not forewarn, nor eulogize, and they are not from a part of my life. They are strangers. For the most part they have been pleasant. But they are not narrative.
They are just there. If there were to be a point to them, this would have to be it. That they exist. Rather as if I had been rummaging about (wandering) in time as if exploring the Amazon and happened upon a new species which I have given the name “A Small Girl.” As if I were strolling through the jungle and happened to push aside a broad leaf to see her. These are things of uncommon presence which simply happen and then are gone. I find myself totally involved in something which seems ‘unique’ in some way, and then it is gone, and I’m left to think about how unique it was afterwards, to ruminate upon it as if it represented a bit of time unlike any other, not linked, and unnecessary in any narrative way but which comes upon a person with the same urgency as seeing a ghost.
The natural thing is to be torn from whatever else had one’s attention when you see a ghost, as it immediately claims the greater importance and portion of your attention. And it is often of the most common thing, such as a neighborhood child knocking on your door to sell you something. And only after you have awakened from the waking dream, that you recognize it as such. It’s as if I were looking out at the scenery as I strolled along and suddenly saw a poplar as Van Gogh might have painted it, or a field as Monet might have conceived, or a young girl as a Renoir figure. We are just a gossamer veil from walking about in the Louvre, or strolling through Dickens, or humming to a nearly captured melody in the pit-tr-pat of falling rain.
Yesterday afternoon I took my dog for our daily walk and was halfway down the block before I realized I was enjoying myself again. It felt good to be out stretching my legs. All at once the fun had returned. I felt stronger. I don’t know why. But I hope it will hang around.
It can make a person an optimist to know these things are out there and might touch base with you at any time.
Like I said, I not only believe in miracles, I live for them.
So, it would seem that whereas a miracle defies natural laws, an epiphany is a work-around in which the miraculous is demoted in importance. Perhaps, with enough insight, we might alleviate our need for miracles.
Still, I would enjoy a good miracle. Perhaps I wouldn’t if they were common. But they’re not. Maybe one role of an epiphany is to recognize the miracle. Certainly, a large number of miracles might pass us by every day. And one role of an epiphany may be to realize this.
The other day I wrote about this in a poem.
Wives Poem #108
Find Your Rut
My wife, a salesperson, thinks I live in a rut.
But smart customers buy today
what has served them well previously.
A lot of people, day after day,
are doing the same—but expecting better—
whereas, I repeat my days, to repeat the pleasure.
Once I’ve had a fine week, I go back for another…
taking seconds or thirds.
Or if just a portion of my day were pleasing,
then I edit for that.
“And if I like my wife,
then I can keep my wife,”
I declare, making the wife smile, and laugh
—all suggesting that her criticism of me
might have been initially too harsh.
I haven’t produced any miracles, but epiphanies are within my reach. Even a weak mind has their realizations. And even a small child produces their poetry.
For example, that small girl who appeared at my door was the very visualization of a poem. For a moment my mind was joined to the essence of the other world. It came and went like a mint on my tongue. I can still remember her effect.
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Carl Nelson‘s latest book of poetry titled, Strays, Misfits, Renegades, and Maverick Poems (with additional Verses on Monetizations), has just been published. To have a look at this and more of his work please visit Magic Bean Books.