The Door of Unmade Choices: Chapter 17
Day 17 — Frank Starts to Spiral
I put that door in the behind me and fought the temptation to look over my shoulder at it. A door seeks you out because it senses your longing. It only sticks around because you want it to. Time to get back to my client and his door. Frank was the case, not whatever baggage I lugged around.
Frank stopped talking about this life the way people usually do. Most folks defend the one they’re in. Sand down the rough edges until it fits a story they can live with. Frank did the opposite. He treated his life like a draft that had accidentally gone to print and he was ready to start over, as if he were brainstorming story pitches at a writer's table.
“I think the band version of me was happier,” he said one morning, standing across from a door that had appeared in the room he dubbed his mancave. It stood next to his oversized flatscreen ultra high-definition and the minibar. Frank sipped a cup of coffee in his pajamas and tattered blue housecoat, studying the gray fiberglass door. It was the kind you buy when you want something low-maintenance and durable for your front door.
Then it escalated. The door opened, revealed a scene of what-if, then flipped to another. The effect was the same as someone zipping through a slideshow of their vacation photos. Only these weren't shots of the cruise to Cabo. These were moments designed specifically to get under Frank's skin. Reminding him that standing in that janky bathroom sipping lukewarm coffee wasn't what needed to happen. He could've been so much more. I could almost hear the door whispering to him.
Startup Frank at least mattered.
Married-Too-Young Frank didn’t quit when it got hard.
The one who moved away probably sleeps better.
Every moment we passed became evidence for the prosecution.
By afternoon, Frank was sprawled on his mancave couch watching the scenes scroll by. He wasn’t even waiting for the doors to react. He was doing their work for them—projecting improvement onto every possible version of himself like a man convinced his coat must look better on someone else.
The Door noticed.
I could feel it before I saw it. A change in the air pressure around us. Doors usually respond to emotion, but this one was responding to comparison. A dangerous fuel. Cleaner than regret. More volatile.
Frank sat up, almost startled.
“Do you see that?” he asked.
The door paused on Young Frank from sometime in college maybe. His eyes were wide with enthusiasm and joy. The kind you feel when the whole world is seemingly available to you and your options feel limitless.
“Frank,” I said, “don’t do this part out loud.”
He laughed, but it came out thin. “Why not? It’s already thinking it.”
“That’s the problem,” I said. “It’s not thinking. It’s agreeing.”
He turned to me then, eyes bright with something that looked like hope but wasn’t quite. “What if I’m the worst version of myself? This right now? Have I peaked?"
There it was.
The spiral always starts with a question that pretends to be philosophical but is really an accusation. I didn’t shut him down. You can’t. You push back too hard and people cling tighter to the idea that’s hurting them. Instead, I softened my voice.
“Frank,” I said, “doors only show you edited footage. This is their version of filters for social media selfies."
He shook his head. “No, I felt it. The confidence. The ease. They’re all better than me.”
“Better how?”
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried again. “They… didn’t mess things up.”
“That’s not better,” I said. “That’s incomplete.”
The door brightened just a touch. It was an attempt at emanating warmth. I knew better.
“Listen to me,” I said. “Every version you’re seeing is missing context. Missing consequences. Missing the stuff that didn’t make the highlight reel.”
“That sounds like something you’d say to make yourself feel okay about your own choices.”
He wasn’t wrong. Which made it sting in a very professional way.
The Door surged. Inward, not forward. The space around us tightened, like the world leaning in to hear his answer.
Frank took a step toward it. I didn’t grab him this time. I stood beside him.
“That door wants you convinced you’re a mistake,” I said quietly. “Because once you believe that, it doesn’t have to work very hard.”
He swallowed. “Then why does it feel so true?”
“Because self-doubt wears the voice of honesty,” I said. “Always has.”
The door hummed louder now. The sidewalk lights flickered. Somewhere down the block, a car alarm went off and then thought better of it. Frank stared at the door like it was a mirror giving him a perfect reflection.
“What if this is the worst one,” he whispered, “and I wasted my shot?”
I let the silence sit between us. Long enough to matter. Then I said the thing doors hate most.
“What if this is the best one?”
He laughed reflexively. “Come on.”
“I’m serious.”
He turned to me, confused. “How could it be?”
I gestured around us. The imperfect street. The flickering lights. The door trying too hard.
“You’re still here,” I said. “You can still choose. The others? They’re fixed. Static. Finished. You don’t get better once you become a memory.”
The door shuddered. Just once. Like it didn’t care for that framing.
Frank exhaled slowly, like someone setting down a heavy bag they’d been carrying out of habit.
“I don’t feel like the best version of anything.”
“No one ever does,” I said. “That’s how you know you’re not done.”
The light faded. Not gone. Just… disappointed.
As we walked away, Frank stayed quiet. But it was a different quiet now. Not hollow. Thinking.
Behind us, the door dimmed, sulking like a bad idea that hadn’t found the right host.
I didn’t look back.
Doors get dangerous when they think you might miss them.
*****
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