The Door of Unmade Choices: The End
Chapter 27 — Closing Time
The Perpetual Egg was empty except for a couple of strays
looking for a late night/early morning meal that wouldn’t go down easy. Dawn
hadn’t quite arrived yet, but it was thinking about it. The sky outside the
windows was the color of a bruise that had decided to heal. Frank sat at the
counter with a cup of coffee that was doing its best.
I sat next to him with my own cup, giving myself space to
breathe. Frank sipped his coffee with contemplation. Not because he needed the
warmth. Because it felt real.
“So,” he said. “That’s it?”
“That’s usually how endings work,” I finally said. “They
pretend to be smaller than they are.”
Frank snorted despite himself. Then, to his own surprise, he
laughed. Not the brittle, defensive laugh he’d perfected over the years. This
one came up from somewhere deeper. Somewhere unguarded.
“I kept waiting for the big reveal,” Frank said. “The
perfect door. The right life.”
“Doors close,” I said. “People open.”
Frank sat with that. Let it settle. For once, he didn’t feel
the urge to argue.
Outside, the sun finally committed to getting on with the
day.
Frank’s life didn’t transform overnight. No montage. No
swelling music. Instead, it adjusted. He woke up earlier. Not to chase
productivity, but to sit with his coffee and watch the light creep across the
kitchen floor. He took walks without tracking them. He said yes to things that
scared him just a little and no to things that scared him a lot.
He started writing again. Not for an audience. Just to see
if the words would still show up. Sometimes they didn’t and he learned to be okay
with it.
The doors never came back.
But the places where they had been felt thinner. Like scars
that didn’t ache anymore but still remembered.
I walked home one evening along a side street I’d taken a
hundred times before. Halfway down the block, he slowed. It was the place where
a January Door had once stood. Now, nothing.
Just brick. A flickering streetlamp. A patch of sidewalk
that no longer hummed with possibility or regret. Once, a door had stood there.
Waiting. Patient. Cruel. I studied the empty space for a long moment, then kept
walking.
Back in my office, I slid the case file into the cabinet.
FRANK MERCER
INCIDENT TYPE: Metaphysical
STATUS: Closed (for now)
I lingered a moment longer than necessary, fingers resting
on the drawer handle. I thought about my own doors. Ones I hadn’t opened. Ones I
had. The one that had almost been meant for me.
Dr. Calico Verde would say this was growth. I would say it
was survival with paperwork.
I turned off the light.
Outside, the night went on doing what it always
did—unimpressed, expansive, quietly full of chances no one could see all at
once. The cold winter air nipped at my face and I pulled the collar of my coat
up. The case was closed. Life continued. January was ending. Tomorrow, February
would begin.
That was enough hope to make the walk home a little warmer.
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