007 - The Door That Can't

For as long as she lived, Linna was followed by a door. Not just any door – this door was antique Victorian, about ten feet tall and made of beautiful oak. Its frame was elaborately carved with curls and curves and those little flower shapes that had a French name. The knob was bronze, and as beautiful as if it had been cast yesterday, with equally beautiful designs set into the shining metal. It had no keyhole. It was a very welcoming door, after all, so why should it be locked?

This door followed Linna loyally, ghosting her steps, always hovering politely behind her. It never came closer than three feet unless she wanted it to, and never butted in front of her in line or got in the way of her view at the movie theaters. But whenever she peeked over her shoulder, there it was, that beautiful oak door with the French flowers on the frame. She tried to tell her mom about the door when she was a kid, but she was just laughed at and patted on the head. It was the oh-you’re-so-cute-when-you’re-being-ridiculous pat, and somehow she just knew that her mom didn’t have a door.

Later in life, Linna realized that no one else had a door. That, or no one liked to talk about their door. Why else would her friends have told her she was crazy? But she wasn’t crazy. The door was just as much there as her toes were there. Just like her toes, she rarely thought about her door in day-to-day life. Unless of course she was bored, in which case she’d play with the door the same way a bored person taps their toes.

When she had told her friends about the door, and they had all given each other their skeptical glances and raised eyebrows, they had asked her where exactly her door led. Linna was honest when she answered that she had no idea what was on the other side of the door. Unfortunately, this did little to convince any of her friends that the door was real. After all, if you were followed by a door your whole life, wouldn’t you have walked through it at least once? No, Linna had never opened her door. This is not to say, however, that she hadn’t tried.

Many days, she had turned around and asked her door as politely as possible to stay put so she could approach it. Every day, the door obediently listened, and did not flee to remain behind her as it would usually. Each time, she would approach the door and circle it a few times, looking hard at it. She never knew what she was looking for. She was just…looking. The door was the same from both sides, and it always cast a shadow behind it. The shadow never fell in front of it; no matter how politely Linna asked, she could never stand in her door’s shadow. It was even shyer than the door itself.

Finally, she’d find just as much nothing as she had expected to find, and would actually approach the door. The bronze doorknob was always just a few degrees past ‘cool’ and into ‘cold’, the same way a gravestone was never as warm as the air, but she never minded. She was too busy trying to turn the doorknob to mind. She’d turn and she’d turn that cold, bronze doorknob. She’d turn it both ways, maybe rattle it back and forth, though she hated the sound it made when she rattled it. It sounded like two bones hitting each other, and made the little hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up. She’d fight with that doorknob until her palms were red and her wrists were tired, but it would never turn. Once, when she had had the flu, she swore the doorknob had turned just a tiny bit, but her hands had been shaking, and she might have been imagining it.

So, when Linna had told her friends that she didn’t know where her door led, she had been telling the truth. They hadn’t believed her, but it had been the truth. Years passed, and she slowly gave up on the door. Obviously, it didn’t want to open. It just wanted to follow, and as long as it didn’t do any damage, Linna was fine with that. Every once in a while she’d try the doorknob again, just for old time’s sake, but it was as stubborn as ever to not turn. Slowly, the ‘while’ of every once in a while grew longer, and the ‘once’ more rare. By the time she was eighteen and walking to the podium to officially graduate high school (followed by her door all the way across the hardwood stage), she hadn’t touched that cold doorknob for at least a year.

She had fun that night, as any new graduate had every right to. She had always been a smart girl, and stayed well away from the kegs (unlike many fellow partygoers), opting instead to stick to soda. The parties finally ended at a time that parents call horribly late and joking teenagers call ‘quite early’, leaving Linna to walk herself home. It was only a few blocks, the same few blocks she had walked hundreds, maybe thousands of times over the course of her life. The moon was almost full and fully beautiful, shining brighter than any of the ugly yellow streetlights. It was pleasantly cool out, with just enough of a breeze to ruffle her bangs but not enough of one to turn cool into cold. Her door followed her down the street calmly, obediently, and utterly forgotten for the time being.

Suddenly, from behind Linna came the sound of tires screeching against the pavement, that sound that always reminds people of something being killed. It was quickly followed by the thunk of aforementioned tires being thrown up onto a curb. There was the sound of metal scraping across cement, a drunken shout, and one desperately long scream of a horn. Headlights drowned out both the beautiful moon and the ugly streetlights in a hideous ghostly glow.

Behind Linna, the bronze doorknob that was always a little too cold turned and the beautiful oak door with the French flowers started to open, and for the first time since Linna was born, she found herself standing in her door’s shadow.