Metaphysical Furniture

Chapter 26 — The Final Threshold The door was waiting where it always waited. Not in a field this time. Not in a memory-shaped room or a half-built version of a life. Just there. Upright. Ordinary. Wood grain worn smooth by hands that never belonged to Frank. A brass knob dulled by years of imagined use. I stood a few steps back, hands in my coat pockets, giving Frank the space you give someone who’s about to say goodbye or decide not to. Frank didn’t feel the rush anymore. That heady cocktail of what if and almost . The door wasn’t brighter than the world around it. If anything, it looked smaller. Less certain. Like a suggestion of a door. He stepped closer. For a moment, the air tightened. The door reacted not with drama, but with recognition. The faintest shimmer passed through the frame. The door was curious but didn’t want to make a big deal about it. You again? it seems to ask. Frank rested his hand on the knob. And for the first time since this all started, the door showed him...

  Chapter 25 — The Door Weakens The first door disappeared while a man was still talking to it. He was mid-sentence—something about if I’d just stayed —when the frame thinned like breath on cold glass. The door became translucent. Then it was just… gone. The man finished his sentence anyway. He stood there blinking, mouth still slightly open, hand hovering where the handle should be. He looked embarrassed, like he’d been caught sneaking into the part of an old video rental stores where they used to hide the pornos. Frank watched from across the street. “Did you see that?” he asked. “I did,” I said. “Door ghosted him.” “That feels… rude.” “Doors aren’t big on closure. Ironic, I know.” The man muttered something under his breath and walked away, shoulders slumped, but lighter somehow. Like someone who finally said the thing they’d been rehearsing for years, only to realize there was no audience left. We kept walking. There were fewer doors that day. Not gone yet but diminished. Less ...

  CHAPTER 24 – CHOOSING NOW   The diner was quieter in the morning. Different quiet. Less haunted. The kind that belonged to bacon grease and early risers instead of unresolved lives. Frank sat in the same booth as the night before, staring at the same menu, but it didn’t feel like a trap this time. Instead, it felt available. The Door hadn’t appeared yet. New behavior for a door. Usually they are all too eager to lure you with their siren’s song. Frank took a sip of coffee, smiling in spite of its general badness. It feeds on too late , he thought Not failure. Not regret. Not even longing. Too late . The phrase had weight now. He could feel how often he’d used it—like punctuation at the end of every unfinished thought. Too late to start over. Too late to be good at it. Too late to matter. The Door loved that part. It lived there. Camped out in the space between maybe someday and not anymore . Frank looked around the diner. The waitress wiped down the counter. A man at the fa...

  Chapter 23 — Silas Tells the Truth We decided we needed a bite to eat. The Perpetual Egg was open but empty in the way only diners ever are—lights on, grill warm, the sense that someone could come in at any moment, but probably wouldn’t. The clock over the counter ticked too loud. Coffee steamed like it was trying to escape. Frank sat across from me in a cracked vinyl booth. He had both hands wrapped around his mug, not drinking it. Just holding on. Me? I was devouring an open-faced roast beef sandwich like it was my last meal before being led to the electric chair. The door hadn’t followed us here. That bothered me more than if it had. “You ever notice,” Frank said, staring into the coffee like it might answer him back, “how some places make it harder to lie?” I glanced around. The laminated menu. The pie case. The waitress pretending not to listen while listening to everything. “Yeah,” I said. “Diners are like confessionals. A place to share what you wouldn’t anywhere else. No...

  Chapter 22 — The Neutral Space The room was white and without walls or a ceiling. No floor Frank or I could swear to. We stood anyway, because standing felt like the polite thing to do. “This isn’t a life,” he said. “No,” I replied, my voice sounding smaller than usual. “This is what happens when the doors get tired of choosing for you.” There were no objects here. No unfinished painting. No mirror. No Alternate Frank. Even the regret had been wiped down to a dull shine.Frank took a few tentative steps. Each one felt easier than the last. Lighter. Like gravity had decided he’d earned a break. “I don’t feel scared,” he said. That’s when I moved. I grabbed his arm—harder than I meant to—and the contact felt wrong, like my hand had gone numb halfway through the decision. “Frank,” I said, “this room doesn’t hurt you. That’s the problem.” He frowned, distracted, already slipping. “It’s quiet,” he said. “For once it’s quiet.” Ahead of him, something suggested itself. I recognized it i...

  Chapter 21 — The Mirror Conversation A mirror appeared from out of nowhere. Tall and old, it was the kind of mirror that doesn’t flatter and doesn’t apologize. The edges were nicked, silver backing peeling in places like it had been through things and didn’t see the point in hiding it. Frank stopped short. “That wasn’t in here before,” he said. “Neither was honesty,” Alternate Frank replied. “The cryptic messaging is so damn annoying.” Frank turned. “You do it. Now my alternate doppelganger is doing it. So damn annoying.” The room had changed. The unfinished painting still leaned on its easel, but its colors bled outward now, seeping into the walls. The guitar hummed softly without being touched. The manuscript pages fluttered though there was no wind. Everything in the room seemed restless. Waiting to be acknowledged. Frank faced the mirror. He saw himself but not as he was. He saw the moment before every almost-decision. The breath held. The email never sent. The audition neve...