The Door

One

The door wasn't there the day before. It wasn't there that morning when he had left for work. The grey, rough though varnished wood had been plaster covered brick. The door hadn't been there. Now it was. The thing with a door is, it has to be opened. That's what it's designed for. It's what we're conditioned to.

That was why Steven found himself holding the door handle, pulling it open.

It could have been locked. Some are. If it had been the front door, it surely would have been. The white (if you ignore the scuffs from being kicked shut when Steven returned home from the supermarket with his hands full of bags or the countless times he would be focussed on his phone) door was always locked except when he was entering or exiting his home. Inner doors, such as to the kitchen or bathroom were never locked. Living alone, his bathroom didn't even have one of those little slide bolts you bought for less than a pound at the local 'Everything Less than £1 Shop'. So the door, which shouldn't be there but was, may well have been locked.

It wasn't.

Handles can often give away the door's function. You wouldn't get a lightweight, chrome curve of metal on an exterior one. It would be heavier. Solid. It would have the slot for the key beneath it. In this case, there was no place for a key, but the handle felt as if there should be. It seemed unfinished, as if the hole had forgotten it should be there and was still in bed having pressed snooze on the alarm for the fifteenth time.

It didn't occur to Steven that he should leave the door be. Discover where it had come from. Had it been a prank by one of his friends? Ben? Ben was the big joker. He was the prime suspect. It had to be him. Even so, Steven hadn't paused for a second before laying hand on handle, twisting and pulling. It was an automatic, trained reaction. Like a phone ringing. He could never just let it be without picking it up to see who was calling. The same with 'Wet Paint' signs.

A such, he was already walking through the opening before he'd even looked properly to see what lay beyond.

It was bright enough, on the other side, to cause him to cover his eyes. He felt as if he'd walked from a darkened room to one where the light had suddenly been switched on, temporarily blinding him. Still, he stepped through. Still he pulled the door shut behind him.

As his eyes became accustomed to the brightness, his ears, too, seemed to become used to his new surroundings. He heard shufflings. Murmurings. The scrape of something sharp on something hard.

Then the scream.

His blinking eyes opened wide. His mouth too, in a scream of his own.

Steven's brain tried to register - to make sense of what he was seeing but there was too much, too fast for it to comprehend. He could feel it breaking down, switching off, crumbling beneath the storm of sensory excess. He choked, the air too afraid to escape his throat, as something advanced on him. Reached for him. Touched him.

"Sir?"

He opened his eyes, not aware he'd closed them. There was no brightness. No dim hue where shadows could skulk and squirm. he looked up.

"More coffee, sir?" He blinked. Coffee? "Are you ok sir?"

He looked around. He was sitting at a table. Other tables were around him. People were sitting at them, eating breakfast. Some were looking at him. On his own table, there was a plate with the remnants of a cooked breakfast congealing as the fats and oils cooled and thickened. He could see there had been bacon. Eggs. Possibly sausage. A coffee cup was to the side, dregs swimming around in the bottom, unhappy with being left behind while the rest of the contents had been consumed.

"Sir?"

Steven looked up. The waitress was staring at him, the frown lines etched too deeply in her forehead and around her eyes. They held back the mantle of beauty but still allowed a tired attractiveness to fight its way through. He smiled.

"Sorry, I was miles away. Erm... yes. Coffee would be good, thank you."

He looked at her name badge. It had the name of the establishment above her name. One King West Hotel over Ethel. She didn't look like an Ethel. The name seemed too old for her. He imagined her to be an Amanda or a Rebecca. He realised he was being judgemental and he berated himself. She seemed nice. And genuinely concerned. His upbringing of intolerant parents and restricted freedom sometimes slipped through the net and escaped back into the ocean of his emotions. He would try to catch it but it could often prove to be a slippery bugger, evading his grasp and swimming from his mouth in the form of an unkind comment. He wasn't that person. He refused to be. Just because his parents and brother held no court with anyone even slightly different to him didn't mean he had to follow their lead. He was better than that. He was a nice guy. If he told himself so enough times, he hoped it would be true and it certainly was the norm. The cracks could be plastered over with a cheeky smile and a sprinkle of humorous sarcasm to hide the unintentional intent.

As the waitress poured his drink and walked away, he said:

"Thank you Ethel."

She turned back and flashed him a smile which made her wrinkles scatter in fear. He was wrong. She was lovely and he apologised.

He looked around again. He had no idea where he was. One King West. He'd never heard of it and couldn't understand why he'd be sitting having breakfast. In fact, he'd finished the meal and was washing down with the waitress's proffered beverage. The eating area was raised with steps leading down to the actual food. Opposite was a bar and the reception desk. Large gilded doors with ornately frosted glass led, he guessed, to the outside world. Directly opposite, between the desk and bar, was an automatic door with a sign above it. 'Lifts'.

He realised, suddenly, the woman had an accent. The men chatting at the next table had the same one. They were American. It was an odd coincidence. There were not a great many different nationalities in his home town. A sprinkling of Polish with a handful of Spanish. To be served and seated next to someone from the US or Canada was unusual. Kind of cool.

The doors to the lifts swooshed open, reminiscent of Captain Kirk's Enterprise. Steven felt as if he'd been beamed up. He was now circling some other star (perhaps the second one on the left), sitting on the holodeck and waiting for the captain to come and introduce himself. Through the doors came a woman. She was dressed in a smart black suit with a white shirt and a tie. Her voice as she called "Good morning" to someone Steven couldn't see sounded loud - not in a shouting sort of way but more in an energetic, exuberant way. The mass of thick, curly blonde hair seemed to be filled with the same effervescence her voice was. She bounced as she walked, as if even her footsteps were similarly enthused.

She was walking towards the bar area. A thick, rectangular column blocked his view from the person she was speaking to, but he heard the answering "Good morning." He coughed sharply. Bile rose in his throat. His stomach clenched tightly as if imploding. He gripped the arms of thechair to prevent himself vomiting and grabbed for his coffee, ignoring the heat as it burned its way down his throat. The warm liquid seemed to sooth the sudden nausea but made his head start to throb.