Story: The Third Door
note: if you actually bother to read this whole thing, you already know that i'm (a) melodramatic and (b) closed minded. before you open your mouth, im going to go on record by saying that the overburdening of the sentences with cumbersome words is entirely intentional. if you MUST critique it, know that im looking for instances of repeated words, words placed too closely together, and things of that nature. spelling errors. whether i should or should not use a contraction in a given instance. if you tell me "you should have ended this differently" or "this idea doesn't work in this place," i will kill you. this took me forever and im very high on my horse, dont knock me down.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
My father built the split-level farmhouse over the course of three years. We lived in it from the time the newly shingled roof was able to repel rain, even before the interior walls, so we'd become acquainted with every element of its construction. We wrote our names in the cement on the bottom level. There were no secrets. It had two sturdy outside doors.
I was seventeen years old the summer I found the third door.
I had been reminded to check the locks before bed, as usual. I was always awake later than anyone else, reading or writing by the lamplight in my room on the ground floor. That night had been strange for me with that uncanny sense of "events pending." I'd been on edge for days. Under the circumstances, I wasn't in much condition to be processing both extremes - the ache of loss and longing together with an inexplicable dread. My dry eyes and throat were tired from hours of near-crying (the ability to shed tears had been misplaced years earlier), and my fingers were cramped from writing.
It was the summer I'd learned to hate; for reasons I felt no one would ever really understand. I deduced, at one point or another, that my reasons were largely imagined. I wanted to close off completely, though, despite that. No more heartache. I would wish for a way around it; I'd wish on stars like I was four years old. I would wish on stars to be four years old, to relive that paradise and find the divergent path that had only recently brought me here.
Stars, despite their immense energy output, are sometimes the coldest creatures in the universe. I deduced that as well.
I knew what to expect from sleep. The recent dreams had been abysmal. Partially ignoring the sink in my stomach and the tingle at my neck, I glanced over the pages again. Words and symbols. A spatter of blood. It was a elaborate and melodramatic suicide note; one I did not specifically intend to use. For the archives only, in case some careless action were to cause my untimely death.
Soon.
It was in that spiraling-downward thought vein that my mind had found itself when the tension I had been imagining escalated to a breaking point. I became faint and I lost my sight briefly, as a sudden darkness tunneled and blurred my vision. I stumbled backwards and blinked until it went away. I needed food or sleep, I realized, and desperately. I took a deep breath and looked up from the desk.
I left my room and made my way down the darkened hall, clumsily tripping over the carpet in the entry room. The front door was locked, as was expected. I thought about getting a drink. I trudged up the stairs to the side door which, though locked, was thrown wide open. I found that unsettling, and I almost would have disregarded it if not for the persistent sinking feeling in my stomach. I closed the door securely and walked up into the dining room, where the lights were still on.
It has always surprised me how one can enter a familiar area and immediately sense the differences. Minute details, such as a slight change in smell, lighting, or airflow. It occurred to me then. I may have spent a few seconds thinking about it, in fact, before the realization struck me. Earlier that afternoon, when the sun was shining and my mind was less troubled, I had considered hanging one of my more recent paintings on the bare wall at the end of the hallway. Tonight, there was no wall.
It was dark at first - a gaping maw framed by a perfectly normal doorway. I blinked again, but the apparition did not dissolve. It was futile, I knew. I'd had my eyes play tricks on me before, and this was different. I could dimly see a tangle of light and shadow on what must have been a floor. The light from the dining room illuminated nothing beyond the threshold and little else at that far end of the house. I turned them off, thinking that with the glare eliminated I might catch a glimpse of the impossible floor. Unfortunately, I was correct.
The interior of the house ended at that wall, or at least it had until that night. Anything beyond that should have been empty space, an area about seven feet above the lawn outside. Instead, there was a room. I struggled to maintain my perspective, but found it quickly slipping away. The effect was nauseating.
I have only a faint memory of slowly and incredulously walking towards it. I stood in the doorway for what seemed like hours staring at the moonlight on the carpeted floor. It destroyed my remaining hold on reality. Putting aside the consideration that the room simply could not exist, there was one observation in particular that managed to stand out after several minutes of study.
It would occur to me, of course, to look for signs of a recent construction. The most realistic explanation was that an addition was quickly built on the side of our house in the few hours since I had last been upstairs. Tenuous, at best, but not outside the realm of physics. Finding a room constructed of new materials would support that theory.
As I examined the door frame, identical to the others in the hall, I noticed chips and dents in the wood. When I looked into the empty room I saw frayed patches of carpet and barely perceptible stains. The window was mottled with the mineral deposits of heavy rain. It did not look any newer than the rest of the rooms in the house. It did not smell any newer. And at the far end was an old, beaten exterior door.
I approached it at length, walking across the disturbingly solid flooring, to find much the same as the two doors that I had watched my father install in what seemed like ages past. There was a note taped to it, in my own handwriting: "It's over." I couldn't process that; I tried to ignore it. The door admitted a slight draft, or I could feel a chill. To this day I am not sure which. But when I put my hand forward to brush my fingers over its surface, I was met with a shock; the mind-numbing sensation of the outward side opening into an infinite cosmic void. I felt the weight of causality in a visceral, gut-wrenching sense - that proceeding any further would have unimaginable consequences.
I felt the call of the stars. It was augmented by the impression that opening the door would do nothing short of vault me into an unfathomable abyss, without bearing, without anything familiar, without any way of returning home.
Looking back, I could have scarcely been more accurate. I opened the door.
+++
I write this to you many sad years later that you might know the truth.
I returned and I sealed that gateway. What lies beyond the third door cannot be explained in our feeble language. If it could be explained, it would not be understood. If it could be understood, it would assault every shred of psychological fortitude you posses, and you would become what I have become - listless, tormented, crushed, insane.
These may be my last words. This morning I woke from old nightmares to a pallid sun and that tingling at the back of my neck. By nightfall, I could fully sense the change and I followed the sinking feeling to the basement stairwell... Followed it down the stairs. I placed my bare feet one in front of the other across the cold concrete floor where I thought I saw...
There.
Where yesterday there was not, there is now a massive oaken trapdoor in my basement floor, and I am unable to resist the call of the stars.
[‡]
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
My father built the split-level farmhouse over the course of three years. We lived in it from the time the newly shingled roof was able to repel rain, even before the interior walls, so we'd become acquainted with every element of its construction. We wrote our names in the cement on the bottom level. There were no secrets. It had two sturdy outside doors.
I was seventeen years old the summer I found the third door.
I had been reminded to check the locks before bed, as usual. I was always awake later than anyone else, reading or writing by the lamplight in my room on the ground floor. That night had been strange for me with that uncanny sense of "events pending." I'd been on edge for days. Under the circumstances, I wasn't in much condition to be processing both extremes - the ache of loss and longing together with an inexplicable dread. My dry eyes and throat were tired from hours of near-crying (the ability to shed tears had been misplaced years earlier), and my fingers were cramped from writing.
It was the summer I'd learned to hate; for reasons I felt no one would ever really understand. I deduced, at one point or another, that my reasons were largely imagined. I wanted to close off completely, though, despite that. No more heartache. I would wish for a way around it; I'd wish on stars like I was four years old. I would wish on stars to be four years old, to relive that paradise and find the divergent path that had only recently brought me here.
Stars, despite their immense energy output, are sometimes the coldest creatures in the universe. I deduced that as well.
I knew what to expect from sleep. The recent dreams had been abysmal. Partially ignoring the sink in my stomach and the tingle at my neck, I glanced over the pages again. Words and symbols. A spatter of blood. It was a elaborate and melodramatic suicide note; one I did not specifically intend to use. For the archives only, in case some careless action were to cause my untimely death.
Soon.
It was in that spiraling-downward thought vein that my mind had found itself when the tension I had been imagining escalated to a breaking point. I became faint and I lost my sight briefly, as a sudden darkness tunneled and blurred my vision. I stumbled backwards and blinked until it went away. I needed food or sleep, I realized, and desperately. I took a deep breath and looked up from the desk.
I left my room and made my way down the darkened hall, clumsily tripping over the carpet in the entry room. The front door was locked, as was expected. I thought about getting a drink. I trudged up the stairs to the side door which, though locked, was thrown wide open. I found that unsettling, and I almost would have disregarded it if not for the persistent sinking feeling in my stomach. I closed the door securely and walked up into the dining room, where the lights were still on.
It has always surprised me how one can enter a familiar area and immediately sense the differences. Minute details, such as a slight change in smell, lighting, or airflow. It occurred to me then. I may have spent a few seconds thinking about it, in fact, before the realization struck me. Earlier that afternoon, when the sun was shining and my mind was less troubled, I had considered hanging one of my more recent paintings on the bare wall at the end of the hallway. Tonight, there was no wall.
It was dark at first - a gaping maw framed by a perfectly normal doorway. I blinked again, but the apparition did not dissolve. It was futile, I knew. I'd had my eyes play tricks on me before, and this was different. I could dimly see a tangle of light and shadow on what must have been a floor. The light from the dining room illuminated nothing beyond the threshold and little else at that far end of the house. I turned them off, thinking that with the glare eliminated I might catch a glimpse of the impossible floor. Unfortunately, I was correct.
The interior of the house ended at that wall, or at least it had until that night. Anything beyond that should have been empty space, an area about seven feet above the lawn outside. Instead, there was a room. I struggled to maintain my perspective, but found it quickly slipping away. The effect was nauseating.
I have only a faint memory of slowly and incredulously walking towards it. I stood in the doorway for what seemed like hours staring at the moonlight on the carpeted floor. It destroyed my remaining hold on reality. Putting aside the consideration that the room simply could not exist, there was one observation in particular that managed to stand out after several minutes of study.
It would occur to me, of course, to look for signs of a recent construction. The most realistic explanation was that an addition was quickly built on the side of our house in the few hours since I had last been upstairs. Tenuous, at best, but not outside the realm of physics. Finding a room constructed of new materials would support that theory.
As I examined the door frame, identical to the others in the hall, I noticed chips and dents in the wood. When I looked into the empty room I saw frayed patches of carpet and barely perceptible stains. The window was mottled with the mineral deposits of heavy rain. It did not look any newer than the rest of the rooms in the house. It did not smell any newer. And at the far end was an old, beaten exterior door.
I approached it at length, walking across the disturbingly solid flooring, to find much the same as the two doors that I had watched my father install in what seemed like ages past. There was a note taped to it, in my own handwriting: "It's over." I couldn't process that; I tried to ignore it. The door admitted a slight draft, or I could feel a chill. To this day I am not sure which. But when I put my hand forward to brush my fingers over its surface, I was met with a shock; the mind-numbing sensation of the outward side opening into an infinite cosmic void. I felt the weight of causality in a visceral, gut-wrenching sense - that proceeding any further would have unimaginable consequences.
I felt the call of the stars. It was augmented by the impression that opening the door would do nothing short of vault me into an unfathomable abyss, without bearing, without anything familiar, without any way of returning home.
Looking back, I could have scarcely been more accurate. I opened the door.
+++
I write this to you many sad years later that you might know the truth.
I returned and I sealed that gateway. What lies beyond the third door cannot be explained in our feeble language. If it could be explained, it would not be understood. If it could be understood, it would assault every shred of psychological fortitude you posses, and you would become what I have become - listless, tormented, crushed, insane.
These may be my last words. This morning I woke from old nightmares to a pallid sun and that tingling at the back of my neck. By nightfall, I could fully sense the change and I followed the sinking feeling to the basement stairwell... Followed it down the stairs. I placed my bare feet one in front of the other across the cold concrete floor where I thought I saw...
There.
Where yesterday there was not, there is now a massive oaken trapdoor in my basement floor, and I am unable to resist the call of the stars.
[‡]
posted by ~Allie~ @ 10:12 AM
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