PA-1988-154 · THRESHOLD · 1988 · DEMONSTRATION
A Door That Was Not Ours
Charlotte, North Carolina
Deposition
Fictional demonstration record. Not a genuine eyewitness account.
A man, then twenty-nine · Demonstration deposition
It was a cheap apartment and I knew its measurements because I had hung a mirror and argued with the landlord about the length of the hall. Three doors: bath, bedroom, linen. I came up the stairs a little after six with groceries. There were four doors.
The extra one was at the end, where the wall should have been. Older wood, a brass ring for a handle, the kind you pull. There was a thin line of light under it, gold, not the fluorescent in the hall. I set the bags down. I did not touch the ring. I am not proud of that and I am not ashamed of it. I went next door and asked Mrs. Alvarez to come look. She is not a woman who plays.
When we came back there were three doors. The wall was the wall. The groceries were where I had left them. Mrs. Alvarez looked at me the way you look at a person who has had a long day, and then she looked at the wall a second time, which I have always been grateful for.
I still dream of opening it. The dream is not a nightmare. I think I declined an invitation. I am not sure I was wrong. If the Archives have other doors, I would like to know I am not the only one who did not go through.
ALSO ON THIS HEADING
The Chair in the Kitchen
A week after a funeral, a daughter finds her mother’s chair drawn out and a chipped cup set down, as if someone had only just sat to wait for her.
Goochland County, Virginia
The Hour That Wasn't
On a rain-slick stretch of Route 29, a closed diner is passed three times in different states, and a wristwatch loses forty-seven minutes that a household clock will not give back.
Route 29, south of Lovingston, Virginia