Opening the door upon a brand-new year. Well, trying to open it anyway…

“Is that you, Mr. Moon?” I asked. “I can’t see you in the night rain.”

“It’s OK, I can see you, and I got a message that you were not having the best of days. What’s the problem?”

“I’m stuck in the house,” I said.

He said he understood that after days of rain, lots of people were getting cabin fever.

But it wasn’t that kind of stuck. As I opened the door to let the old year out and invite the new one in, I discovered that I could do neither. I looked longingly out the...