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The story

A door slammed shut, at 2 in the morning.

It’s almost 2 a.m. A friend of mine steps out of his home for two minutes, in his slippers, just to drop something off at his neighbour’s. He has only taken his phone. Behind him, a sharp little click: the door has just slammed shut. The keys are still inside.

No need to panic, he tells himself, he just has to call a locksmith. On Google there’s no shortage of ads, all of them “24/7”. First number: it just rings. Second: nobody. Third: “Sorry, not working today.” He tries again, and again.

Around 3 a.m., he calls me. I search with him and call other numbers myself. Same result: nobody picks up, or nobody is available.

And that’s when I thought: this is crazy. In the middle of the night, in Geneva, it’s impossible to find a locksmith to open a door? Somewhere there must be one, at home, awake, who would gladly have come. But he isn’t on any website or any list. Nobody can know he’s available.

Luckily, his neighbour, a really kind man, let him have his sofa. But my friend didn’t sleep a wink. At 8 a.m., a locksmith’s shop finally opened. Six hours unable to get home, because of a slammed door.

There were surely locksmiths available. The problem was that nobody could find them.