The Boy and The House of Many Doors
By: Adam Maloney


There was a boy who lived in a house with many doors.  One door was made of the whitest ivory carved into seraphim and cherubim with trumpets of glory.  Another was of gnarled and knotted oak which breathed the dust of ages long past.  There were doors of glass and flowers, doors of the brightest jade and opal, and doors of the darkest coal and soot.   Each door hid a world of wonderment for the boy and each day filled with adventure and laughter.  There were rooms of carousels and lollypops,  of pirates and generals, of all the sweets and chocolates that might tickle a boy’s fancies.  Each door was a room and each room was a world of delight for the boy.

Time passed, as it always does, and the mornings’ wakes held less and less interest for the boy.  He had played in his wonderland for as long as he could remember.  Every doorway had been explored, every room had been exhausted, and every step was so known to the boy that life in wonderland had become routine.  Even a young boy can only eat so many sweets and swashbuckle so many times.

There was but one door through which the boy had never entered.  This door, which sat in the very center of the house, was unlike every other magnificent portal he knew.  It was a door, to be true, but it filled the boy with such dread.  The door was blackness - solid, world ending, blackness.  One time the boy had tried to figure out just how black the door was so he closed his eyes, but the door was blacker.  Next he shut out the lights, but the door was blacker.  He then covered his eyes and thought of the night and the shadow and all that was dark in all the universe, but the door was blacker still.  It was not a large door, no bigger, in fact, than most doors should be, and it lacked any malevolent markings.  In fact, there was nothing that would lead one to believe anything about the door was less than ordinary if not for the blackness.  Needless to say, the door burned a fear into the boy and, being a young boy who did what young boys do, he eventually could think of nothing - nothing save the solitary black door.

Days, weeks, months, or seconds - the boy knew not how long he deliberated, but the door grew in his mind.  All that he knew was that he had…HAD…to peek beyond the door.  Stocking his pockets full of sweets of every kind, the boy readied himself for whatever lay beyond  that solemn portal.  As his hand reached for the handle he felt fear, but he battled it down and grasped, then turned, and finally pushed.  The door gave way easily as though its hinges were well maintained and the boy, caught off guard by this, stumbled through into the gaping blackness beyond.

CLICK…

Said the door as it shut behind him.

The boy sat in silence upon the ground(?).  He reached for the handle(?) on the door(?) behind him and grasped only the dead void.  Silently  (for who knows who listened) the boy wept.  After a time the boy wiped his eyes and noticed a tiny speck of white on the horizon.  With no door (had there ever been one?) to return through the boy decided to see if the speck was a way out.

Around the boy, in the darkness, black things slithered.  Dark, invisible eyes watched him hungrily and wet breath was never far from the boy’s neck, but still he walked on.  He waded through a stream of slick that bubbled and tried to suck him under, but still he walked on.  Razor winds tore at his flesh and whipped through his bones, yet he would not stop.  For lifetimes he walked, sometimes he ran when he felt the nightmare things almost upon him, and slowly, ever so slowly, the speck grew and became closer.  With not too much further to go the boy(?) broke into as fast a run as his legs could carry him.  The endless night was almost over.  The boy(?) could feel his invisible pursuers fall back until, at last, he stepped through the doorway.

It was blinding at first.  After so long in the darkness, the boy(?) could barely stand the radiant brilliance of the room around him.  Ceiling, walls, and floor met in and orgy of light and white and the boy(?) marveled at the empty room.  But as his vision settled, the boy(?) noticed the room was not entirely empty. In the room stood two things: first, a young girl, and second (only more out of place), a wooden door as white as the room that contained them.  The boy(?) knew the girl though he had never seen her before.  

“Hello sister,” said he.  

“Hello brother,” responded she, and then she smiled.  

“I don’t know you,” said the boy(?), “but I feel I should.”  The girl only smiled in response.  “Is this your room?” he asked.  The girl nodded her head.  “Were you imprisoned here?  Was it pirates?  Or was it dragons?  Maybe it was people you can only see when you close your eyes.  Those people can be nasty sometimes.”

The girl just giggled.  “Nope,” she finally chimed, “no one locked me in here.  I came of my own free will, and have been waiting here a long time.”

“Waiting for what?” the boy(?) puzzled.

“Waiting for you.”  As she said this she took hold of his hand.  She smelled of jasmine and bubble gum, of cinnamon and sand, of winter, and summer, and everything in-between.  “My brother, do you see that door?”  The boy(?) nodded.  “That is the door of choice.  It is the only way out of this room (the door you came through is gone).  It is a doorway to another place.  It can lead back to your house of portals and wonder, back to your endless days of childhood.  To a million swordfights and an uncountable number of truffles.”

“Or?” queried the boy(?).

“Or it can lead you elsewhere.  It can lead you to what lies beyond.  Either way you can never come back.  You can only pass through the door once, and whichever outcome you choose, know that you and only you have come today and know that the choice in your heart will dictate the place; there is no other force.”

The boy(?) thought and thought which, having been a young boy, was no mean feat.  Finally he looked at the girl and nodded.

The girl nodded back and pulled open the door.  As the boy(?) approached the door his hand slid into his pocket and he felt all of the candies and chocolates which he had brought for his travels beyond the void door.  “Brother, it is time…” whispered the girl and she held tightly onto his little(?) hand.  As the two figures stepped through the door, the smallest ghost of a smile crept onto the lips of the girl.

CLICK…