Once again, it was where it shouldn't have been.Horatio Bloom, the construction manager of Allestimenti & Co., was staring at it. It was a swing door, to be precise, one that pushes to the right. This time, it was positioned in a corridor of the Fastom Fulton booth at the Annual Innsbruck Fashion Show. In terms of appearance, it was the same as all the others, but the resemblance ended there. Mainly because that door should not have been in that spot. No passage had been planned in that wall. In essence, that door had neither been constructed nor loaded onto the trucks. And, above all, Horatio had never had it installed. For ten years now, Allestimenti & Co. had been participating in that Fair. Clients changed, as did the areas to set up, but every blessed year, it was there, and you found it in the place where it shouldn't be. The door appeared the night before the opening. And there was no need to stand guard to try to see it appear because it always manifested itself in a spot where you weren't looking.
No one had ever managed to explain this unusual appearance. Incredulity over the years transformed into resignation - after going through the stages of surprise, fear, anguish, and anger - until seeing it appear became a sign of good luck. And the clients? None of them had ever complained. Except for the fourth year when an annoyed client, bothered by the slightly intrusive gap, wanted it covered with a massive graphic panel.For Horatio, the matter was more serious, and he complained about it, indeed. At first, he was perplexed by the fact that the door had no lock. No matter how hard he pulled on the handle, it wouldn't budge a millimeter, as if it had been carved with the entire door into a single block of granite. But the greater shock came when he noticed that the door existed only on one side of the wall. Inside the room it was supposed to open into, there was nothing but a clean partition. For him, all of this became a matter of principle: as the very strict construction manager, he would not allow anything or anyone to move around the booth without his consent, let alone a door! So, there was an immediate clash.
Over the years, he tried to disassemble it, saw it away, replace the panel, remove the entire wall, or change the partition materials multiple times... But nothing worked. No trick ever worked. No matter how hard he tried, the door reappeared as soon as you blinked, and it remained there until the night before the dismantling. In short, like a mischievous ghost, it appeared and disappeared at will.
No one had ever managed to install or uninstall that door: it simply vanished at a certain point.The field of booth setups had occupied a significant part of Horatio's life. In his career, marked by great trials and recognized successes, the matter of the ghostly door represented a unique, annoying blemish. That's why when he retired, more than a reasonable pension, it was important for him to obtain a guarantee from the company for access to all openings at the Innsbruck Fair as long as there were clients (or as long as the event existed).
And so it was: in addition to the booth projects, Allestimenti & Co. sent him an access pass to the pavilions every year. Not that he ever needed the pass. His strange and intense relationship with the door was part of the history of the Innsbruck Fair, and no steward would ever check if he had a ticket or not. In those years, even when age-related ailments would have prevented anyone else from the strenuous task, he always arrived punctually at the event. He would come with the first visitors, holding the booth setup plans under his arm. He would greet the stewards at the entrance with a nod and start wandering through the pavilions, searching for the booths his old company had installed.
And the door? He found it every time, and always where it shouldn't be. Every time, Horatio would stare at it and then, with a smile, place his hand on the handle, attempting to open it. But the door resisted: with a sigh of disappointment, he usually took a step back and left.Outside the booth, there was always someone who knew the story and awaited the decisive intervention, accompanied by a victorious gesture from Horatio. But every time, he shook his head with a melancholic smile, as if to say, "I haven't succeeded yet."Every year, the same story, except for one: the year he turned 83. That time, Horatio entered the booth, but no one saw him leave again.
More than the concerns of his family, it was the long and now legendary story of the door that immediately triggered the searches. However, these searches led to nothing, and Horatio was never found. The Fair's cameras had recorded his arrival but had never seen him leave.On the night of the third day of the fair, when all the visitors had already left, the family and the director gathered at the Sparko booth, along with the local police. And right here, on the first floor in the corridor leading to the internal bar, the infamous door appeared. For the first time, it not only opened but also allowed access (as logic dictated) to the bar's storage room.However, for the first time, there was something unusual and unexpected: the other side of the door, the side that had been concealed all that time. Now it was there, visible to all, and it bore the marks of the years that had passed. Over fifty, according to the forensics, who later confirmed that the door had been opened, crossed, and closed behind by one person. That person could only have been the one who disappeared. Horatio had indeed left his fingerprints on both handles.In front of that door, the commander asked for a moment of attention. First, he told the family of the old booth installer that an official investigation into his disappearance would be opened. However, he wanted to inform everyone of something that would not be reported in the case file.The disappeared had left his fingerprints on the handle, but it was as if the door had been opened by an old person's right hand and closed by a child's left hand.
