Kevin Durant: Stairway at 48 rue de Lille

Seemed a good time to pull out the Ed Hopper lens. Don't know what I'm talking about...click here.

The step creaks with arthritis, and the railing itself gives like a knee. The shadow that follows the groans of a staircase's old age is nothing but a silhouette of skin and bones, falling back into the depths of the forgotten first floor. The shadow is a thin curtain, and appears frail enough to need a cane; but the body moves with a surprising spryness. Captured in Kevin Durant's ascent up the stairs is the worn out, tired idea of the hero, rejuvenated by a six foot ten inch Jacob's ladder of taut muscle and sinew.

As this young detective climbs, he holds his glock out before him, ready to fire, just like he was taught at the Academy. When he came in the front door, he heard whispered movements upstairs suddenly stop, as if the front door was a resounding shhhhhhh. His partner, Westbrook, manned the backdoor. If someone had run out that way, Durant was sure he would have heard shouts or shots fired. No, the interloper was still in the house, waiting upstairs behind these double doors, in the closet, under the bed, or behind the dresser, probably armed, definitely dangerous.

Durant pauses about a foot from the door, takes his left hand off his gun, hesitates, and pats the iron door knob as if the building were on fire and he were checking for a safe exit route. The knob feels cold as the wind outside-- Detective Durant feels a craving for coffee, black, to warm his blood--from the slit between the two doors he can smell tobacco burning, a cigarette snuffed out just as he entered the house. Durant turns the door knob slowly and swings open the door, eye down the barrel of his gun.