The Rotted Door

A low moon hung in the sky, casting shadows across the damp soil beneath Jeff’s feet.  He was barefoot but walking at a steady pace, as if he knew exactly where he was going.  He didn’t.  He was just walking.  Leaves occasionally brushed against his face as if the forest was comforting him during a long journey.  The air was thick with humidity but not a single mosquito or moth bothered him.  He felt like they were there but he couldn’t see them.  Twigs bowed and snapped as he walked.  The whole environment seemed surreal, like a sci-fi movie that hasn’t revealed its plot yet.  He felt none of the discomfort someone might expect to feel while walking barefoot through a darkened forest and it was enjoyable.  Blissful, even.  He continued to walk.  

The trees began to twist in ways that Jeff felt sure trees weren’t supposed to twist, like they were being manipulated by yet another thing he couldn’t see but knew was there, just the same.  Limbs wrapped around each other and bent in unnatural directions forming arches all around him.  These arches filled in with more branches until it was obvious that they were forming doors, crooked and warped by the branches they were formed from.  Each tree door had a gap at just the right height to be a window even though that seemed completely illogical.  Wouldn’t more forest be the only thing on the other side of these doors?  Jeff walked right up to one of these doors and peered inside, already sure of what he would see.

The door Jeff approached was made of tree limbs with little pink flowers blooming from it, despite the moonlit night.  By about three feet away, he could see the window illuminating as if a lamp was on the other side of it.  There was no glare since there was no glass but Jeff still couldn’t put his hand through the window.  A barrier existed there that seemed as hard and sturdy as glass would’ve been.  He’d intended to grasp the bottom of the window frame like a handle to open the door but his fingers jammed against the invisible barrier, stopping him.  He stood, baffled, for a moment, then squinted his eyes to look through the now brightly lit window in this strange door.  

His eyes blurred as they adjusted to the light.  A beautiful world of flowers, lush green grass, and butterflies lay beyond the door.  He’d never struggled with color blindness but these new vibrant colors made him wonder if he’d had the affliction all along and never known it.  He’d definitely never seen colors like this before.  Everything appeared to buzz with life.  Even the rabbits hopping cheerfully from grassy patch to grassy patch looked as if they knew nothing of despair or struggle.  His own heart filled with peace and tranquility as he surveyed this strange place that embodied a live-action version of a Disney cartoon.  

Without knowing why, he stepped away from the door, tears of joy in his eyes, and began walking back the way he’d come.  He wanted to turn around and look through more windows but somehow knew he wasn’t meant to do that.  It was time for him to go.  His body knew that but his mind desperately wanted to stay.  He began to force himself to turn and found himself jerking bolt upright in his bed.  Tears still dampened his face and the feeling of pure joy lingered in his chest as he sat there trying to figure out where he was.  Or who he was, for that matter.  Seconds turned into minutes as the memory of Jeff’s reality crept slowly over him, fading the blissful feeling of euphoria into a distant souvenir of a dream he wished he could stay in.  

This wasn’t the first time he’d dreamed of the tree branch doors, of course.  He hadn’t remembered in the dream but he’d been there before.  Each time he had the dream, Jeff would find a different door.  Each time, he would spy a different land in their glassless windows.  They were all fascinating in their own right, some beautiful beyond measure like the door with pink flowers and some disturbing with spider webs on the tree door and a dilapidated house standing ominously in the distance.  

He wasn’t sure what it all meant but he wasn’t upset by the dreams.  They gave him something interesting to look forward to.  Broke up a bit of the monotony he felt in his life.  He certainly didn’t think it was anything supernatural.  Maybe just his mind’s way of finding something extraordinary in a reality he found to be wholly lacking of remarkable or unique things.  Boredom is just as powerful an emotion as fascination.  Maybe his dreams were an escape that his mind desperately needed from the world around him.  

Life went on, just the same.  Jeff stretched as the pangs of reality finished settling in.  His alarm clock sounded, startling him fully back into the here and now.  A stark reminder that his dream world was done and real life would wait for no one.  He needed to get up, showered, dressed in proper business attire, and begin his half hour commute to the job he’d worked so hard to get but no longer enjoyed just so he could pay for the apartment he shared with his cat and the car that reliably got him from point A to point B with no fanfare at all.  Living the dream.  Only, not really.  He’d much rather be in his dreams.  He’d come to genuinely look forward to those tree branch doors and whatever he might see beyond their glassless windows.  Maybe someday, he’d be able to open one….

That thought lingered during his shower and didn’t fade until he was behind the wheel of his 2021 Toyota Corolla.  Driving in a college town tended to be a strong distraction from any previous thought.  Drivers were so ridiculous, swerving in and out of traffic.  No one valued life anymore.  Getting to work in one piece without a road rage incident was the top priority most days.  Not because Jeff was overly aggressive but because everyone else seemed to be.  He just rolled his eyes and kept driving most of the time.  

His job wasn’t much better than his commute.  He’d worked so hard to get a desk job, thinking that would be easier than manual labor, only to wish he was outside instead of inside a cubicle with no windows, surrounded by the quiet chatter of keyboards all around him.  This accounting firm was one of the biggest around but he was low on the totem pole.  It would be many years before he would catch anyone’s eye, if he ever did at all.  He figured those forest tree doors might be his mind’s way of escaping into a world that was full of all the adventure and mystery his reality lacked.  Everyday was spent going through the motions until he could crawl back under the covers and explore his forest.  Yes, his forest.  The only place the real world couldn’t invade.  Until the alarm clock sounded, of course.  But even that was okay.  He knew he’d be back there at the end of the day and that was enough for him.

This particular day was no surprise.  He went to work, crunched some numbers, and went home.  Dinner was a microwaved store bought frozen concoction followed by his favorite ice cream bar in front of the TV with his cat by his side.  It was as dull and predictable as all his other days for the past two years.  Nine in the evening rolled around and he began his routine of picking out his clothes for the next day, packing his turkey sandwich lunch, and brushing his teeth because even mystical forest explorers need good personal hygiene.

Crawling into bed actually brought him a twinge of anticipation for what lay ahead, if only it would last longer.  He would close his eyes, see the doors, and wake up in what always felt like the span of a few minutes.  The memory of it, however, would fuel him for most of the next day.  To that end, Jeff closed his eyes and thought of the forest with its twisting branches snaking into doors before his eyes.  He thought of the damp air, the crickets chirping, and the wet forest floor giving ever so slightly beneath his feet.  Before long, he could smell the dampness in the air and feel the leaves against his face once more.

The darkness of his closed eyes gave way to green leaves pushing past him as his feet carried him into his forest.  This time, he knew he was in his forest.  He’d successfully brought at least some portion of his memory of previous dreams with him into his special place.  A sense of pride flitted through his mind and then he was fully in his forest.  Jeff glanced around, looking for the doors but seeing none.  His feet still carried him and he felt confident that they would find the doors.  They always did, after all.  After a few more moments of walking, his feeling was confirmed.  Tree branches began to twist to his left.

Although he could see the pink flower covered door further off in the distance, Jeff turned and began walking toward this new door forming near him.  This wasn’t a shock to him since he always seemed to look into doors he’d never seen before.  What was a little surprising is that he didn’t recall ever seeing a previous door.  Once he’d seen them, they tended to be lost to him.  The pink flower door waved slightly in the cool, midnight breeze but he couldn’t greet it.  His feet had chosen his path and it was to this new door.  The branches groaned and snapped a bit while forming their door.  They didn’t normally do that.  The formation of the door was normally a smooth process.  That was also another new development.  Even in his dream, Jeff had the distinct feeling of not minding that there were new and different things happening.  He normally had no memory of previous doors so he had no idea what was new and what was familiar.  He found these new turns of events to be intriguing.  His mind tried to rush to the door but his feet kept a steady pace that forced patience on him.  The loudly complaining wood branches contorted into a door more jagged than the others.  Dead looking twigs jutted out from its frame while the glassless window formed in the middle of it.  Jeff imagined termites happily munching on the decayed looking frame as his feet stopped in front of the door.

He peered into the door without trying to open it, not just because he remembered the others not opening but because he wasn’t sure he wanted this one to open.  It smelled of mold and glistened with a slimy covering that he didn’t have to touch to know was present.  His eyes didn’t have to adjust like they had for the bright light in the pink flower door.  The black beyond this door was much darker than the forest he presently stood in.  It was broken only by one small, dim stream of light that cast only one shadow from the lone figure in the room.  This figure seemed shorter than Jeff, although he couldn’t really tell from the distance between them.  There was a small, narrow head atop shoulders that were hunched forward and slouching.  The arms were drawn up to its chest and the knees were slightly bent.  It almost looked as if this creature was cowering under this light, waiting to be released from its cage.

For no reason that Jeff could think of, he extended his hand from his side and grasped a root in the door.  Even though his mind screamed for him not to, his hand gripped the root while his body pulled on it.  In every other dream, the door hadn’t budged when he tried to open it so he had no reason to even try.  But he did try.  And this door did open.  The creak it produced defied logic since the door looked damp and rotten.  It shouldn’t have been dry enough to make a sound but it did.

The creature’s meager head tilted in Jeff’s direction with a swift and sudden movement.  Jeff opened the door wide although he couldn’t for the life of him think of why he would do that.  His mind was demanding that he close this door and run to the pink flower door but he didn’t.  He just stood there, smelling the putrid air wafting from this creature’s space and wishing he was anywhere else but here.  The thing began to shift its weight and straighten slightly as if it was preparing to walk.  Or worse.  To run.  In the silence that lay just inside the door, Jeff heard a faint whisper come from the dark figure in the room.

“I want to make pain.” it wheezed.  Jeff pondered that statement for a moment.  What exactly did it mean by that?  How does one make pain?  

Before Jeff could analyze that statement any further, his feet finally had a moment of wisdom and took a few steps backwards while his hand released its grip on the door.  The thing’s face came into view just enough to see its deep set eyes that looked like caves with small milky white centers and its narrow, twisted mouth.  Long, tapered fingers stretched through the shaft of light and reached in Jeff’s direction.  His mind could think of nothing else but running.  Running in the opposite direction of this creature with everything he had.  He was suddenly aware of beads of cold sweat on his forehead and swiped at them.  The creature flinched at the sight of Jeff’s movement.  Its boney legs took several huge strides toward the door before Jeff even registered its movement.  

With eyes as wide as saucers, Jeff turned and launched in the direction from which he’d come.  Just three steps into his escape attempt, a root caught his foot and sent him flying through the damp forest air.  His frantic mind was throwing his hands in front of him to catch himself as he shot upright in his bed.  His vision adjusted to the sudden change of setting as he searched the room for danger.  He expected to see that thing upon him at any moment but there was just wall and headboard behind him.  A welcomed reality, indeed.  Struggling to calm his racing heart and gasping lungs, Jeff staggered into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face.  He wasn’t surprised at all to find that his face was wet before the water ever even touched it.  He’d been sweating profusely in his sleep.

After several splashes of water and a few moments of staring at his terrified face in the mirror, Jeff felt calm enough to make his way back to his bed.  His phone said three minutes after three in the morning.  The witching hour, he thought with a chuckle.  Glad to be back in the real world for once, Jeff settled back into bed and decided to use a trick his mom taught him many years ago.  She always told him to think of something very happy and friendly when he was scared at night.  Usually for Jeff, that was kittens.  Normally, his cat slept with him but she was nowhere to be found.  He assumed that was because he’d been tossing and turning during his nightmare.  Since he couldn’t get comfort from his own kitty, he laid in bed watching cat videos on his phone.

It took half an hour for him to fully relax and another half hour to start feeling heaviness in his eyes.  Still, his furry roommate was MIA so he put his phone down and rolled over to assume her favorite position to sleep in with him.  Instead of hearing her little paws running across the hard floor toward his bed, he heard another familiar sound hissing through the silence.

“I want to make pain.”