Opening The Door – Anonymous
Opening The Door was the first story in the book Sweet Fruit from the Bitter Tree and it stood out to me right away. This story reflects so many emotions in such a short story such as sorrow, anger, acceptance, and fear. It’s about a guy named Jeremy who completed his sentence in prison and just got released. He stayed with some family members and went out to a bar after his release and at that bar, a hippie said something to Jeremy which made him burst in anger. His family and friends took him away and when they got back to their house, he was still angry and wanted to go back and give that guy a piece of his mind with a gun he found in the house.
In PG. 7 of the book, Jeremy plans on going after that hippie that talked back to him. Everyone tries to stop him but his half cousin said, “You must want to go back to prison. You must be afraid of making it in the real world so go ahead back to your nice safe warm prison cell and spend the rest of your life there.” This made Jeremy break down because he wasn’t angry with the man, he was angry with himself. He thought he didn’t stand a chance in the real world since he was in prison for so long but he was reassured by his family that he had many paths he could take in life.
It had a lot of emotions but was expressed very passionately, you can tell just by reading the story what everyone in that house was going through. You can especially tell what Jeremy was going through and how prison changed him.