The Door of Unmade Choices: Chapter 10
Day 10 — Forced Exit
My office has one window and one door. That simplicity
appeals to me. One way in, one way out. No access to other dimensions or
portals to alternate timelines that don’t really exist.
The window looks out onto an alley that smells like wet
cardboard and a dumpster that needs emptying. The door to the hallway sticks in
the summer and groans in the winter, like it’s protesting the idea of letting
anyone in or out. I keep it that way. Dr. Calico Verde tells me it’s a metaphor
for my emotional aloofness. Whatever. Last time I took a metaphor seriously, it
turned into a three-week case and tried to kill me twice. I’ve learned to let
them pass without comment.
*
I sat at my desk long after Frank left, the hum of the
building settling back into something resembling normal. The door we’d escaped
from earlier had vanished like a thought you decide not to finish but its echo
lingered. They always do. Doors have better memories than people. Frank had
been shaking when he left. Elated, even. The kind of elation that comes from
almost losing everything and deciding that means you’re invincible.
I’d seen that look before. I’d worn it.
There was a time years ago now, when I’d believed they were
answers. You step through, something changes, and the checkbook of your life
finally balances. Grief subtracts. Regret divides itself into smaller,
manageable pieces.
That was the pitch, anyway.
The first door I ever walked through didn’t hum. It didn’t
shimmer or warp or do anything dramatic. It just stood there, beige and
unremarkable, like it had wandered in from an office park and decided to try
metaphysics for a while. I remember thinking that was a good sign. Damn, was I
wrong.
On the other side was a version of my life that hadn’t gone
wrong in the specific way mine had. Same me. Same suit. Fewer scars—internal
and otherwise. A woman laughing in the next room, the sound of it landing in my
chest like a bruise you don’t mind pressing.
I made the same mistake everyone makes when they go through
a door: I stayed too long. People think the danger is in crossing the
threshold. It’s not. It’s in the lingering. In letting the door convince you
that this version is stable and sustainable. That it won’t start asking for
payment once you get comfortable.
Doors don’t like tourists.
Eventually, mine destabilized through a quiet unraveling.
The edges of things softened. Conversations looped. The laughter started coming
half a beat too late. Reality, it turns out, hates being plagiarized.
I barely got out.
I didn’t get to take anything with me. Not the answers. Not
the comfort. Not even the certainty that I’d made the right choice. Doors don’t
offer the answers they promise. It’s a metaphysical bait-and-switch. They just
close behind you and dare you to explain the absence.
That’s what Frank didn’t understand yet. He thinks what he
felt was belonging when it was really recognition. The door looked at him and
saw an unfinished sentence. So it offered to fill in the blanks.
I poured myself a cup of coffee that had been on the burner
long enough to give the look of motor oil. The steam curled upward, briefly
forming shapes that meant nothing and everything, depending on how generous you
were feeling.
More doors had appeared overnight. I didn’t need to see them
to know that. My office felt crowded in that way it does when the universe is
clearing its throat. Doors breed when you give them attention. And they get
bold when they realize you’ve already walked through one.
Frank will want to go back. The trouble is so will I. And
that’s how I know this case is about to get worse.
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