The Door of Unmade Choices: Chapter 7

 

Chapter 7 — Threshold Anxiety

If you want to understand a town, don’t watch it on its best day. Watch it when something strange interrupts the routine and nobody’s sure who’s supposed to react first.

The door at The Perpetual Egg lasted twelve minutes. That’s how long it took for wonder to curdle into discomfort. At first, people stared like it was street magic. Someone laughed. Most people gleefully participated in the requisite posting of photos and videos to social media. A man in a windbreaker leaned close, squinting, as if the door might open for him through nonverbal persuasion. A woman near the counter wiped her hands on her apron and crossed herself, quietly, in the hopes of divine intervention from this assuredly demonic presence. Of course, these doors aren’t demonic. Just opportunistic.

Then someone opened it. I didn’t see who. That’s not the important part. What mattered was the sound they made when they stepped back. A sharp and involuntary gasp, like air escaping a balloon in an instant. They didn’t scream. They didn’t cry. They just stood there blinking, as if they’d briefly misplaced the present.

That’s when fear showed up. Fear always fashionably late to the party, pretending it had been there in the corner the whole time chatting it up with some vivacious woman. I watched people process the door in real time. Wonder from the curious. Grief from the ones who recognized something too quickly. Anger from those who felt cheated by lives that hadn’t offered them an alternate route. Frank stood beside me, rigid. His hands were clenched so tight his knuckles had gone pale.

“You okay?” I asked.

He nodded. Then shook his head. Then settled somewhere in between.

“I keep thinking about it,” he said. “Walking though the door.”

“You can’t cross the threshold,” I warned. “No matter how tempting.”

“I know it’s not smart,” he continued. “I know it doesn’t fix anything. But every time I see one of them, it’s like my brain is already halfway through the door.”

“That’s how thresholds work,” I said. “The tempt your brain. Then they go for the heart.”

Joe sat at the counter, silent for once, which worried me more than any commentary or confession. The crowd continued its investigation of the door. The murmur of their conversation swelled.

“I don’t even think I want to stay there,” Frank said. “I just want to look again. To make sure it was real.”

I turned to face him fully. “Frank, listen to me. These doors don’t show you reality. They show you emphasis. They highlight what you’re already thinking and strip away the consequences. It’s a false promise of a dream it can’t fulfill.”

He frowned. “That sounds like advertising.”

“Exactly,” I said. “And just as honest.”

The door shimmered faintly, reacting to the swell of emotion in the room. Not dramatically. Just enough to feel attentive. That’s when it clicked.

“Silas?” Frank stood, suddenly alive. “Why do some people see them and others don’t?”

“Because not everyone’s broadcasting,” I said.

He waited.

“The door responds to emotion,” I said. “Specifically unresolved emotion. Longing. Regret. That sense that something important slipped past while you were busy being responsible.”

Frank swallowed. “So, the more I think about it…”

“The louder it gets,” I finished. “You’re not summoning it. You’re amplifying it. And now its feeding off all these people here. All their questions about what could’ve been had they not settled.”

The door hummed, low and patient. A waitress edged around it like it might suddenly ask her if it has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

“I don’t want this,” Frank said. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“I know,” I said. “That’s the problem. This thing doesn’t feed on bad intentions. It feeds on honest ones.”

The door flickered. The crowd’s anxiousness reached a fever pitch. The Cup of Joe finally spoke.

“Careful,” it said. “You’re turning the volume up.”

Frank closed his eyes. Took a breath. Let it out slow. The hum softened. The door dimmed, just slightly.

Frank opened his eyes, startled. “Did you see that?”

“I did,” I said.

He looked at me, hope and fear wrestling for control. “So what do I do?”

“You stay here,” I said, holding his gaze. “In the room you’re actually standing in. And we figure out why this door thinks it gets a vote.” Behind us, the door waited.

January always did this. It didn’t knock. It lingered. It made you anxious at the threshold, wondering whether stepping forward would change anything or just make it harder to come back. And this case was no longer about where the doors were appearing. It was about whether Frank could stop listening long enough to choose something else.

*****

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