A Door

Written by Tony Greif, Edited by Sarah Moon

Untitled 5 by Javier Bello

There's a door in my wall.

It's not a normal-sized door. It's shorter than I am, coming to right underneath my chest. It's made out of different sized pieces of wood with one across the middle, nailed into the pieces to keep them from falling apart. The wood is dark, contrasting sharply against the dull beige of my wall. Sitting in the center right side of the door is a doorknob. The doorknob is brass and polished. It's still clean. Not a smudge, fingerprint, or speck of dust on it. Never touched.

There is never any light coming from behind the door. It's perfectly sealed. When I put my ear up against it, I can't hear anything on the other side. No rats, no wind, no trees. Just silence.

The door doesn't lead anywhere. At least, I don't think it does. It isn't on the outside of my house. There isn't a perfect mirror on the other side. It only has one face. So it must not lead anywhere.

Sometimes at night, when I can't sleep, I sit and look at this strange door in my wall. I think about where it could possibly go. All doors lead somewhere. I think about another world; about a beautiful manor, with mahogany walls and redwood desks, and a staircase with exactly 86 steps. I think about hills of green grass blowing in the wind under soft moonlight. I think about a party I might open it to, with people dancing and laughing. Talking to each other. Drinking champagne from fancy flutes.

I look at my door, with its dark wood and brass handle. My door that leads nowhere, and I think of places I could go, people I could meet.

There's a door in my wall and I've never opened it.     

—

"Are you thinking about that door again?"

I look up from my drawing at David. I quickly close my notebook and lean back, dropping my pencil onto the table. "Yeah. I was thinking about it last night."

David rolls his eyes and sits across from me, crossing his arms and leaning toward me. "You should just open it. I mean, it's just a door. What's the worst that could happen?"

That takes me by surprise and I pause. It would be easy. It's just a door. I've opened hundreds, thousands in my life. But I don't want to open this one. Why? What's stopping me?

"I-I don't know. I just don't want to." I shrug. "I don't have to open the door. I mean, it's really nothing. It's just a door."

Dave rolls his eyes. He uncrosses his arms and places his hands palm down on the table. "Have you been talking to your therapist about it?"

I feel my cheeks heat up at this. No. Of course I haven't. She wouldn't understand. It's not an obsession, no matter how much she tries to tell me. I frown. "It isn't any of your business." My grip on my notebook tightens as I say this.

David puts his hands up and leans back away from me, and I let out a breath of relief. "Alright, alright. I'm sorry I asked," he says defensively. I don't stop glaring at him. "Well, it was good to see you, but I have to go." I nod slowly at Dave and he smiles and walks away. I know he's thinking about the door too. It never leaves your thoughts, no matter how hard you may try. I can never stop thinking about it. Even when I think I've forgotten, it's always there in the corner of my thoughts.

I put my notebook back on the table and open it up and continue my drawing of the door.

—

I like staring at my door. I call it my door. It was here when we moved in. I just sleep in the same room as it. I have dreams about it at night. Sometimes the dreams are fantasies of far-away places that don't exist. Sometimes I open it to find people I haven't seen in years, relatives that have passed away, friends from before I moved. Sometimes I hear voices and noises from behind the door. But it's never the same dream twice. At least, I don't think it is. None of the dreams feel familiar when I wake up. But, just as fast as they arrive, they dissipate into nothing inside my head, and all that's left is the nagging feeling of this door as I get ready for the day.

And it never leaves me.

—

"This is some really good work," Professor Browne says across from me.

I smile while looking around his office. It's somewhere I thought my door could bring me once. It looks like the house with the 86 steps, all dark wood and cluttered, ceiling high bookshelves. It's cozy and warm, like somewhere I could spend a lot of time and never get bored. There's a pristine globe on one of the surfaces in the room. It's old, the continents not quite right. California's not attached to North America yet.

Professor Browne clears his throat and I look up at him suddenly. "Sorry yes," I say, my attention turning back to him.

"I said this was really good." He places the stapled pile of paper down on his desk before folding his fingers. "But there was something I noticed." I swallow a thick ball of mucus down my throat as I attempt to breathe. "In all your work, there's always a door. Why?"

I shake my head. "There's a door in my room. I've never opened it. I guess it somehow made its way into my writing as well."

The man in front of me nods and leans back in his very comfy looking desk chair. His shirt is rumpled and not tucked in, his eyes heavy with bags, and his hair is messy and oily, like he hasn’t had a shower in a week. "This is a creative writing class. I want you to try and write about something else. Something that's not this door."

I nod slowly. Can I really do that? Not write about the door? It's the only thing in my life I can rely on. It's the only thing that's actually constant, ever-present in my mind. Maybe this is what love feels like. You can't stop thinking about the other person. Your mind is filled to the brim with thoughts of them that you can't get rid of. Even when you're distracted, thinking of other things, you still have that little thought in the corner of your mind, that thought about them. And it never truly goes away.

But I wouldn't know. I've never been in love.

—

I can never make anything out in the voices. Just mutterings and mumbling, too quiet to hear. I wish I could hear what they're saying. Then maybe I could find out where that door goes. But the words never fully form, left as quiet rambles in the dark of my room.

And then there's the footsteps.

I don't know what they are. Sometimes it's the sound of heavy boots on packed earth, people carrying things twice their weight, on a long voyage from nowhere to somewhere. Other times, it's like pawprints in a forest, light on dry leaves that are waiting for the rain to leave and the snow to arrive once again. And even sometimes, it's the sound of small bare feet as they run through an empty hallway, wood underneath their toes, chasing one another through their house. There are usually light giggles accompanying those footsteps. I always liked that one.

But, with every dream, there's always the door, in my wall, in my room, leading to nowhere. Or maybe, I'm nowhere, and the door leads to somewhere.

—

"Sweetie, could you help me with the dishes?" my mother asks. I nod and walk over to the sink, picking up plates and a dishrag, methodically drying each one as much as I can for my mother to put away later.

It's strange. Sometimes I hear a similar sound from my door. The sound of ceramic plates being placed on top of one another, but it's not the same. There's something different from my door. Perhaps a better adventure than drying plates. I smile.

"Are you thinking about that stupid door again? I swear, I should have moved you out of there when we first moved in." I still at that, the rag sitting in the middle of the plate. My mother continues, "But no. Your father said it was all okay, that nothing bad would happen. All you do is think about that stupid door. I swear, I have half a mind to go in there and open it myself."

My grip on the plate tightens, and without even checking to make sure it's dry, I place the plate on the ever-growing stack. "Please. Stop," I mutter to her.  She just rolls her eyes and goes back to rinsing. "It's not stupid."

"Well of course it's stupid!" she exclaims, and I almost drop my newly acquired plate. "I mean, all you do is think about it! It's in every conversation, every piece of writing, I mean hell! You even draw it all the time!" I wince at that. "Your grades are slipping. You're not even looking for jobs. I'm worried about you sweetheart."

I nod. "I know."

She sighs and shakes out her hands, drying them on a dishcloth before walking over to me and hugging me. I don't hug her back.

—

When I was eleven, I went to the Winchester house with my school, a seemingly haunted place in Northern California with many doors that lead to nowhere. It was a routine school trip, something they did every year. But this time, they left someone behind.

Everyone else was opening all the doors, trying to find new rooms that had never been explored before. One of my friends was determined to find a new room and be crowned King of the Winchester Manor.

But I didn't open any doors. I would step through ones that were open and walk past ones that were closed. I would watch my classmates’ disappointed faces when they would open a door and there would be nothing but a wall behind it.

Maybe that's why I don't open my door in my wall in my bedroom. I don't know if there's just a wall, and all the places I made up in my head aren't there.

I'm scared.

—

"Come on then! Into the car! Up you go!" my father says to me as I place the last of the boxes precariously on top of the others in the trunk. I roll my eyes as he says this. He's been saying it since I was a child to get me to feel strong about being able to put my suitcase half the size of me into the car on my own. It's childish, and while I'm not a child anymore, it still brings me comfort.

Stepping back, I place my hands on my hips and breathe out a smile. My father closes the trunk before standing at my side. He throws an arm around my shoulders and presses a kiss to the side of my head. "All done," he says wistfully, like he doesn't quite believe it. "My baby, leaving the nest."

I smile at that, but in truth, it's not a fully genuine smile. "Yeah. I'm gonna be gone. Think you and mom can handle that?"

He scoffs. "Please, we can handle ourselves. We always have."

"Okay, Dad. Just remember to help mom with the dishes. She hates doing them alone." He rolls his eyes. I throw my arms around his neck and pull tight. "I love you. I'm going to miss you."

He wraps his arms around my waist. "I'm going to miss you too, baby." He pulls away but still holds me at arm's length. "Make sure to call us whenever you can. And text us! And visit!"

I laugh and pull myself away from him, turning my keys around in my hand. "Of course. I promise."

He nods and I walk to the driver's seat, pulling open the door and getting inside. I turn on the car, and wave at my dad and my mom, before pulling out of the driveway.

As I drive, I realize that the entire time I was packing up, I didn't once think about the door.

—

There was a door in my wall.

It was wooden and metal, and it took over my life. All I would do was think about this door. I would draw it, write about it, have dreams about it. I would talk about it with other people, until they thought I was crazy and stopped talking to me all together. I was always thinking about the door, always had some thought about where it may go or who I might see. I would hear things in dreams and watch it when I couldn't sleep. I would think about its one sidedness and how I could never see where it may lead to.

I don't really think about the door anymore. Sometimes when I see something that might resemble it or maybe it'll come up in a dream. But I don't have dreams about it every night anymore. I don't think about it all the time. My parents moved out of that house, and someone else moved in. I haven't seen the door in years, but sometimes I'll open up my old notebook and smile at the drawings of the door. I'll think about the places I may have gone, the people I could have seen. And I think about how I will never see it again.

There was a door in my wall. And I never opened it.