What A Strange Thing We Are

Chapter One

An unknown doorway could lead anywhere, or to anything, or anyone, or anywhat.

The closed doors to an ancient palace may hold riches beyond dreams, whether those dreams be day, pipe, wet, or finding-a-new-room-in-your-house-while-you-lose-your-teeth-in-your-old-high-school-normal other.

Behind those doors there may be throne rooms filled with gold, gems, watches worth more than cars, cars worth more than houses, vividly coloured parakeets whistling Johannes Brahms' greatest hits in harmonic unison while beautiful admirers clamber over who can show the most skin as they get ready to spoon-feed ambrosia into the mouth of the next person to cross their threshold. Warm steam with hints of lily-of-the-valley, freshly baked bread, lilac and freshly cut grass (after a long, long winter) tickling nasal fancies while receiving oral sex from gorgeous ex-lovers who have consulted oracles, television sexperts, and scientists that have devoted their entire lives to such shenanigans.

Oh my! Doors.

On the other hand, though it is widely perceived that a closed door to a particular unused, somewhat gross (by reputation) public restroom will no doubt lead to several unflushed toilets, mineral-stained basins, and inoperative hand dryers, there are still unknown factors. Like "who might be in there already?" or "how disgusting will this washroom really be? Enough that I'll hold it for the next three hours?" or "will there be a grotesque murder scene involving mall shoppers and viscous animals escaped from a zoo that exists only in my idiot imagination?"

The closed door to a newly-visited friend's guest bedroom may have a wonderfully soft, new, and expensive comfy bed. Or it may be where they store the bodies of their victims between the mattress and box spring of that wonderfully soft, new, and expensive comfy bed. Standing outside this closed door might have one questioning how well they really know and trust this "friend", or whether they will survive the night. "Guest" can be a very loosely-defined term, especially in Blue Beardian terms.

Or it could be where all their precious domesticated echidnas, hedgehogs, and porcupines sleep after a long day of being pointy, and a lazy flop-down on the bed could be painful to guests and pets alike.

Doors!

The point is that what is concealed by a closed door may not be a bad thing. Sure, a closed door may be holding back a million cobras but it could also be hiding a swimming pool filled with hot-buttered popcorn. It could go either way, and that too could be anxiety inducing.

Many studies suggest that a fear of closed doors is a form of claustrophobia (fear of tight spaces), agoraphobia (the fear of open spaces and unfamiliar situations), entomophobia (a fear of doors in general) or perhaps even xenophobia (which modern society sees not as a phobia at all but rather a racist intolerance of foreigners, but is actually a real phobia "of the unknown").

As much as she loved hot-buttered popcorn, Hodge-Podge hated closed doors.

She didn't fear foreigners, but simply not knowing what was behind the door in question was excruciating. She didn't just fear dirty bathrooms, crime scenes, American forensic detectives, and possible cobra infestations; she also feared stealthy blackholes at the ready to suck her in. She feared an awaiting hellish afterlife. Or the sudden trip to an afterlife a loved one might take as she peeks in cheerily. She feared something life changing. She feared a Great Old God's giant fist popping out and grabbing her, pulling her in kicking and screaming, whether she wanted to go or not.

She once stood behind a door she'd seen a million times before in her childhood. Everything behind that door was memorized down to the last corner cobweb. But this time it felt different. It felt strange and unknown. It was unsettling. On the other side she would find her grandfather for (what she didn't know for certain, but suspected with enough of a hunch that it gave her pause) would be the last time.