The Door of Unmade Choices: Chapter 2

 

Chapter 2 — The Man the Coffee Sent

January has a way of delivering people like it’s clearing out a lost-and-found. The unclaimed. The overlooked. The ones who meant to circle back and never did. I guess that’s why I struggle with it. People are taking inventory of their lives; what they did before, what they want to do now. Self-improvement and all that. Meanwhile, January for me is a month that flips on the lights asks me to account for everything I thought I’d already explained.

Maybe that’s why I do what I do. I solve the mysteries regular gumshoes refuse to touch. You won’t find my cases in a police blotter. Like they’d know what to do with them anyway. I investigate the things that don’t fit neatly into reality or filing cabinets. I deal in gray areas. Sometimes literally. If reality hiccups, I’m the guy that tells reality to hold its breath until the hiccups stop.

*

I was back in my office, or what passes for an office. The sign on the door said SILAS SHARP — METAPHYSICAL INVESTIGATIONS, which sounded impressive until you noticed the peeling paint and the smell of radiator dust. Outside, the sky was the color of a missed opportunity. Inside, the radiator clicked and sighed like it couldn’t believe it had to work on a day like today.

I was trying to read a file without absorbing it when there was a polite knock. The kind that asks permission to exist. I opened the door because in addition to opening metaphorical doors, I sometimes open literal ones. After all, that’s how you let people in. And my friend Dr. Calico Verde tells me I need to let people in.

He stood there holding his coat like it might run away. Late fifties. Gen-X posture — shoulders slightly forward, as if bracing for a comment that wasn’t coming. His hair had gone thin in a way that suggested surrender rather than neglect. He smelled faintly of old cologne, winter air, and quiet desperation. He also wore a nice charcoal gray wool sweater. I’m not a sweater guy but he made it work.

“Mr. Sharp?” he asked.

“That depends,” I said. “Who’s asking?”

He blinked at the sign on my door. “Frank. Frank Mercer. This is going to sound strange but a cup of coffee sent me.”

“I get that  a lot,” I said, stepping aside. “Come in before the month decides to finish the job.”

He hesitated, then crossed the threshold like it might judge him. He took in my sorry excuse of an office: the mismatched chairs, the filing cabinet that leaned slightly left, the window that refused to close all the way. He then nodded, as if confirming a suspicion.

“I know how this sounds,” he said quickly. “The coffee talked to me. Not the waitress. The coffee.”

“I know,” I said. “Sit.”

He did. Carefully. The chair creaked, which startled him more than it should have.

“I didn’t think I was losing it,” Frank said. “I mean, I just got laid off, so I assumed the sadness was, I don’t know, situational.”

“Twenty-five years,” I said, because Joe had already told me.

Frank’s mouth twitched. “You’ve got a good source.”

“Reliable,” I said. “Persistent.”

“I feel so disposable,” he sighed.

“Don’t we all?”

He nodded, though at what I couldn’t say. Silence pooled between us, heavy and familiar.

“I wasn’t looking for anything strange,” Frank said. “I just… woke up early. That happens now. January does that to you. Makes your brain punch in before the rest of you is ready.”

I waited. People always talked their way to the important part if you gave them room.

“I went out back,” he continued. “To check the trash cans. I don’t know why. Habit, I guess. And there it was.”

“The door,” I said.

His eyes flicked up. Relief. The small relief of being believed. He leaned forward, hugging his coat to his chest.

“It was just standing there in the yard. Frost on the grass. No wall. No shed. Just a door. Plain. Beige. Like the one I had in my apartment in ’94.”

That detail mattered. Doors always borrowed familiar shapes. They often arrived some familiar times.

“I thought I was still dreaming,” he said. “So I did what I always do when something doesn’t make sense.”

“What’s that?”

“I assumed it was my fault.”

That landed harder than it should have.

“And you opened it,” I said.

He swallowed. “I shouldn’t have. I know that now.”

“What did you see, Frank?”

He looked at his hands. They were steady. That worried me more than shaking.

“I saw my younger self,” he said. “Asleep on a futon. There was music playing. Softly. Like it had been left on all night. Posters on the wall. An acoustic guitar in the corner. It smelled like coffee and dust and pot. And the weird thing is I wasn’t scared. If anything, I felt hope coming from this place.”

Hope. Another dangerous word in January.

“I didn’t stay,” he said quickly. “I closed it. I went inside. I waited. When I went back out, it was gone.”

I nodded. That fit.

“And then the coffee told you to come see me,” I said.

“Yes,” Frank said, embarrassed. “It said you’d understand. This shouldn’t make any sense but I figured seeing a random door in my backyard and a talking cup of coffee were signs I should either seen a shrink. But you’re no shrink, are you?”

“No. I’m not a shrink,” I said. “I’m damage control for weird.”

His expression told me he had no clue what I was talking about. No one ever does. Yet, they come to me when they need someone to help them close a loop. Literal or metaphorical. I leaned back, listening to the radiator argue with itself.

“Frank,” I said, “I’m going to ask you something, and it’s important you answer honestly.”

He straightened.

“Did you think,” I asked, “even for a second that maybe that was the life you were supposed to have?”

He didn’t answer right away.

Outside, January pressed its face to the window, eavesdropping on his answer.

“Yes,” Frank said quietly. “And that’s what scared me.”

I sighed. “Congratulations,” I said. “You didn’t imagine a door. You triggered one.”

Frank frowned. “That sounds bad.”

“It’s not good,” I said. “And we're just getting started.”

The radiator spit and groaned and I found that very relatable.

*******

My new comedic sci-fi novel, Someone Else's Book Club, is available on my website or through Amazon!