I
live in the old tenement on Mulberry. You know the place. It's the one that
never has to be decorated for Halloween. In the five generations that my family
has owned it, it probably hasn't had a fresh coat of paint brushed across the
rough and warped clapboards. The roof of the porch, growing its own field of
moss, sags under the weight of sadness and neglect. As long as I can remember,
grass has never grown in the front yard and a lone, stunted pine tree leans
terribly into the wind. Every year, some kids from across the city find it
hilarious to knock on the front door as some sort of rite of passage. Every
year, my mother answers the door just in time to see several pair of boots
racing down the steps and across the street to safety.
I would probably know those very kids if I were to actually
attend the local high school, but my mother thinks it to be in my best
interests to be taught at home. Especially after dealing with the heathens with
no manners who knocked on the door and then rudely ran away. So, my only social
interaction is with my parents, my younger brother and my senile great
grandfather who lives at the end of the hall.
My great grandfather, third owner of the tenement and the
grandson of the original family owner, was born and has lived in the old place
nearly everyday of his life. The exception was during the four years he was
island hopping in the Pacific with the Marines during the Second World War. He
is a spry, old man. Well, his body is spry, but his mind is almost permanently
stuck in 1942 under attack by the dirty Japs.
There were two rooms at the end of the hall on the third floor
where great grandpa lived. Neither were likely to be entered by anyone in the
family. One was by choice. No one was sure what would happen if you entered
great grandpa's room. He could be attacking a fortified position or engaged in
a knife fight with the enemy. No one wanted to take the chance of being
mistaken for the enemy. If you absolutely had to go in, you hoped that he had
tired himself out and was tucked into a dirty blanket on the floor next to the
pristine, immaculately made bed.
The other room was the great mystery. Practically from birth, we
were warned to never enter that room. Partly due to the fact that it was next
to great grandpa's room, that rule was easily enforceable. However, I remember
one time with absolute clarity, the only time my adventurous older brother
decided that he was man enough to step across the forbidden threshold. My
little brother and I stood a safe distance away as Steve strode confidently
toward the door. He had barely reached for the knob when great grandpa stormed
out of his bedroom door screaming an incomprehensible stream of words directed
at Steve. He grabbed my brother and flung him into the wall across from the
door.
"Are you ready to die?" great grandpa asked, nose to
nose, after he had stopped screaming. My brother peed his pants and squirmed
away from the old man's grip. He hid in his room for the rest of the night. It
was shortly after his eighteenth birthday that Steve moved out. Actually, it
was more like he disappeared in the night. I haven't seen him since. I'm not
sure if my parents have or not, but I know my mother gets a letter a couple
times of year on what looks like expensive stationary or letterhead. She reads
them alone, never to anyone else, then holds them to her chest and sighs. I've
never figured out where she keeps them despite a great deal of snooping between
me and my younger brother, Seth.
So you see, my family is just as strange as the house I live in.
An absentee father who pops in to pay the bills before disappearing on a job
that takes him God knows where to do God knows what, an overbearing mother who
is afraid to let her children out of the house, an older brother who
disappeared half a decade ago, a younger brother who is content to be ruled by
his mother, and a crazy, old great grandpa who is still fighting the enemy
seventy years later.
But it's the door that has my attention now. My father, in a
surprise visit for my eighteenth birthday, has asked to speak with me in his
library. My father has a private sanctuary on the first floor that is a full
two stories high, reaching its ceiling to the floor underneath great grandpa's
room and whatever lies behind the other door. Book after book, moldy with
disuse, lined the shelves all the way to the ceiling. Whenever my father is
home, he has a fire crackling in the fireplace even in the height of summer.
When I stepped into the library, I was shocked to see great
grandpa sitting in my father's usual wing back chair, while father relaxed
against the credenza behind the chair. He directed me to sit in the lone chair
in front of the great desk. A fire burned hungrily in the fireplace, heating
the room almost to the point of being unbearable. Great grandpa leaned forward,
his rheumy eyes suddenly focused and full of mystery.
"Miles, you've reached the age of manhood. It's time you
learned about our family secret. All the men of this family for five
generations have followed the same rite the day after their eighteenth
birthday." Great grandpa's voice was full of vigor, belying the fact that
he was well into his nineties. It was also the longest I've seen him coherent
in a very long time. I nodded, not sure what exactly was happening.
"Listen carefully to what your great grandfather has to
say," my father muttered.
"Miles. tomorrow morning you will enter the room at the end
of the third floor hall next to my room. And we will close the door behind you.
You must not leave until the following morning. To do so will cause your brain
to revolt against reality and you torment you until all futures have ended. Do
not leave the room early. We cannot afford to lose another man in this
family."
"Once you are inside the room, you are to sit on the chair in
the center of the room. You will not stay there, but it is the beginning. Close
your eyes once you've sat down. The visions will come. Do not fight them. Let
them flow into you. And from you."
"I don't understand," I whispered. Despite the fire, I
was suddenly chilled. For so long, we'd been warned away from that door and
that room. Curiosity gripped me and part of me could not wait until the morning
to see what was behind the ancient wooden door. The other part of me was
terrified by what my great grandfather was telling me.
"Listen, boy. You will experience a series of visions that
will show you possible outcomes in your life. I must warn you, you cannot
control what you see. Some may be disturbing. However, your own death nor that
of anyone else can be shown in these visions, either. If someone dies, they
simply will not appear. Violence is extremely rare in these visions. They can
show you the love of your life, the birth of children and seemingly mundane
daily events. Despite this, no matter how insignificant the experience of each
vision, they can have a lasting impact on the direction of your life."
"These visions show only a possible outcome of your life.
They are not the only outcomes. Ultimately, the choice lies with you. Are you
ready for this?"
"I guess so."
"Good. Meet your father just before sunrise tomorrow
morning. He will let you into the room. Just remember not to leave before
sunrise the next morning."
* *
*
It was still dark the next morning when I met my father in the
hallway. The house seemed abnormally quiet. Even the constant creaking of the
old tenement settling seemed subdued. My father pat me on the shoulder and
unlocked the door. It seemed to catch on the threshold and moaned as it opened
to a darkened room. My father flicked a switch, flooding the room with light.
He gave me a slight push into the room, patted my shoulder again, and shut the
door behind me.
The room was musty. Yellowed and grey wallpaper with a dust
covered design was peeling back from the plaster in long strips. A decaying rug
covered the floor in the center of the room under the lone wooden chair. A
chamber pot sat in the corner. The windows were covered with sheer curtains
that we just starting to show a rising sun outside. I moved toward the chair
and sat down.
And waited.
After about 20 minutes of waiting in the
chair with no visions, I was certain that my father and great grandfather were
putting me on. I stood up and looked around the room. After 18 years of not
knowing what was in it, I thought it seemed absurd to simply sit in a chair and
not investigate a little.
Book shelves were covered with old dusty
books, very similar to those in my father’s study. Trinkets and doo-dads sat on
top of the book shelves. None of them were familiar. And it looked like none of
them were from this century. This was the room that time forgot, it seemed.
One book shelf had a box filled with
letters - my brother’s letters he had sent to mom! Another box had letters from
“Miles Smyth” addressed to “Rose.” Miles Smyth was my name, but I hadn’t
written these. Rose was my great grandmother’s name. So maybe these were from
my grandfather - my father’s father - to my grandma. My father never talked
much about his dad. In fact, he literally never uttered his name. Which makes
me suspect - but not certain - that these might be from him.
I pushed the box with my brother’s
letters to the center of the room and grabbed a handful of them, sitting in the
chair to read them. Maybe this is what I’m supposed to do, I thought. Maybe the
“visions” bit was just a joke and I’m really here to learn what has become of
my older brother and my grandfather. Maybe this is the real family secret.
I opened the first letter, dated August
17, 2008, just three days after my brother’s 18th birthday.
“Dear mom, The doctors tell me I will
never see you again. My episodes will only get worse as time goes on, they say.
But I’ve been told that I can write you regularly. They asked that you not
share these letters with anyone. Not even dad. It will simply cause too much
pain. The food here sucks. What I wouldn’t give for a decent pork chop and some
mashed potatoes. I have to go in for my treatment now, but I’ll write again
soon. I love you. Love, Steve.”
I was floored. My brother wasn’t off
backpacking through Europe or living in New
York or on an island surrounded by girls in hula
skirts. Or any of the other things that I’d imagined all these years. He was in
a hospital. And now I knew he was never coming home again.
Stricken by sudden grief, I sat in the
chair and reached for another letter.
That’s when the rite took hold.
I was no longer in the room on the third
floor. I was in a big city. Los
Angeles? San
Diego? I’m not sure. But I felt like I was in California. Standing
next to me was a beautiful woman. And next to her was someone who looked a lot
like me when I was seven years old. It was me. But I wasn’t controlling my own
actions. I called the woman Clara. And I called the boy Steve. We walked down a
boulevard lined with expensive shops. We were wearing nice clothes. And I felt
important. I even walked like I was important. We turned the corner and I was
back in the chair in the room on the third floor of the old tenement on Mulberry.
I freaked out a little and jumped out of
the chair. I was scared. Excited. Confused. I wasn’t really sure of what had
just happened. But I wanted more. So I sat back down.
Again with the waiting. Again with the
impatience. Again with the boxes of letters.
This time I took one of the ones from my
grandfather to my great grandmother. It was dated Feb. 29, 1952.
“Happy Leap Day, Mom. I hope all is well
at home. I wish I were there. The doctors let me go outside for a bit
yesterday. It was a treat on account of the fact that I hadn’t had an episode
in a whole week. They say if I go another week, I can go outside again. And if
I can go a month without an episode, I can come visit. That would be nice,
wouldn’t it? Tell dad I’m sorry. I should have stayed in the room like he told
me to. Love, Miles.”
So it was true. If you leave the room,
you go insane. That’s why my father never talks about his father. And why Steve
can’t come home. I decided then and there that no matter how bored I got or how
weird the visions were, I’d sit in that room until the sun rose the next day.
I sat back in the chair and once again,
the rite took hold of me.
I was flying a plane over Paris, shooting missiles
at other planes. A man sitting behind me who I called “Checker” was screaming
his head off about “fucking up those God Damn Torries.” The planes I was
shooting down had British flags on them. There were also planes from France, Italy, and some other places whose
flags I didn’t recognize. My plane had no instrument panel. Only a big LCD
screen. When I touched it, it seemed to just do what I wanted it to do. Our
plane was hit and we ejected. I landed back in the chair on the third floor of
the old tenement on Mulberry.
Adrenaline rushed through my veins. I
was sweating. Breathing heavy. My heart was pumping 4 million beats per minute.
But it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. I looked around the room for a clock,
hoping to determine how much longer I had to stay there. No luck. No clock.
Just the letters and the chair.
I picked a letter from Steve’s box.
September 4, 2008.
“Dear Mom, I really screwed up. I had a
bad episode last week and stabbed a nurse with a steak knife. They tell me
she’ll be okay but I have not been allowed out of my room since it happened.
I’m hoping maybe tomorrow. I love you. I miss you. I’m sorry. Love, Steve.”
My brother stabbed someone. He’s crazy.
And I will be too if I don’t stay in this room for another … I have no idea how
long. But I’m staying. I glanced out the window. The sun had barely moved over
the horizon. This was going to be a long day.
I sat back in the chair. I had barely touched my ass to the seat when the rite
took hold.
I
tried to gain some kind of control over this one but it was really no use. I
found myself in a tent in the jungle, somewhere. It had to have been some time
in the 1960s or 1970s. Wait a
minute. A jungle? The 1960s or 1970s? Holy shit! I was in Viet Nam! But
where was I? Why was I alone? Why were there no sounds going on outside the
tent? For that matter, how did I know I was in a jungle and it was the 1960s or
1970s? I hadn’t even looked outside the tent yet.
I
decided that I was not going to let this vision happen to me, but that I would
reach out and try to interact with it. The problem is that every time I
interacted with a vision, I wound up back in the chair and in the room. Screw it.
I was going to see what was out there.
I went
to pull down the zipper on the tent door when a knife suddenly cut through the
side of the tent and a screaming man grabbed my wrist. What the hell??! I
screamed and tried to see who it was, but the vision suddenly disappeared and I
was back in the room again.
This
time, however, I was not in the chair. I was standing in front of the painted
over window in the back of the room and I was facing the window. The hand that
I had tried to use to unzip the tent door was still outstretched as it had been
in my vision.
The
hand that cut through the tent was still holding my wrist! I panicked, but I
didn’t move. I could hear someone breathing in the dark corner of the room and
I knew it had to be the person who owned this hand. I
didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I should scream, or run, or throw a
wild punch into the darkness. Suddenly I start hearing the breathing being
intertwined with what sounded like someone speaking Chinese or some other Asian
word over and over again. I could have sworn that the voice was saying the word
“get,” but I couldn’t be sure.
It was
freezing in the room, but the sweat was running down the back of my neck and
all over my body. I started trembling, but it wasn’t from the cold. I could
hear the sound of the figure rustling for something in what sounded like a
pouch. It sounded like he was sifting through a bag full of metal as I could hear
small metal objects clanking against each other.
The
breathing was getting heavier and the voice was getting raspy and goddamned
spooky. Suddenly, the voice switched from an Asian word to English words being
spoken with a thick Asian accent.
“Joe?”
said the voice, with a long, drawn out “O” sound at the end.
Suddenly,
I could see the unmistakable silhouette of a knife blade slowly making its way
towards my wrist. That was the first time I started to struggle, and the hand
closed its grasp on my wrist to hold me in place.
“Joe?
You still wanna knife gook, Joe?”
With
that, I screamed and turned to confront the voice but nothing was there. The
hand was gone, the knife was gone, the breathing was gone and the voice was
gone. I was drenched in sweat and close to shitting my pants. I decided to sit
in the chair for comfort this time, even though it did not have a history of
offering comfort.
As
soon as I sat down and let out a sigh, the chair started to vibrate slightly. I
thought I was supposed to just have visions. Why was all of this stuff
happening? The vibrations started to get more pronounced and I realized that
they were actually footsteps in the room. I could hear Steve’s voice calling my
name, but that didn’t make any sense.
The room itself seemed to spin. Footsteps and voices
that couldn't be there echoed in my head. I whipped around in my
chair expecting to see Steve striding towards me. The room was empty,
mocking me in its sudden silence. I glanced down to my previously empty hands.
One of the letters was crumpled in my hand. I unclenched my fist and
released the pressure on the paper. As it smoothed out a bit I could see that
there were actually two letters stuck together.
The first letter was from my father to his mother about an
experience he had while in Viet
Nam. The second was yet another letter from
Steve.
“Dear Mom, They say this new medication will make me better, but
I can still see those things that aren't really there. You
know, just at the edge of my vision. Whenever I turn my head to look, it’s
gone, but I know it was there. They've followed me from the house.
Maybe Miles can be saved from this torment now that they’re here
instead. I've pulled them out of that dank, old room and made
them mine. Love Steve.”
I dropped the letters. They drifted gently to the floor in slow
motion. I watched them carefully as a dizzying sickness took over. I grasped
the edge of the chair to keep from falling to the floor. It seemed so far away.
The sky was a brilliant blue and the trees in the park were lush
with leaves. It was a beautiful day. It was a place I had never been
before, or even seen. Still, I felt comfortable like I had been here many, many
times. I walked alone along a pathway toward a pond and creek. Other
people were enjoying the day. I watched a homeless woman bring her cart from
under the bridge by the pond. She wasn't filthy like some of the
homeless I've seen around here. She seemed almost grandmotherly and caring
to those around her. I smiled at her and she smiled back.
Suddenly a man ran past me screaming. The other people on the
path parted before him as he rushed through the park. The next thing I knew, I
was on the ground. It felt like someone had pushed me, but I was alone on that
part of the path. I must have tripped over my own two feet while enthralled
with the visage of the screaming man. I pulled myself up to me knees. That’s
when I saw her, the most beautiful, most elegant…
I was back in the chair in the room. My world continued to spin
for a few moments and I stayed still to catch my breath. Everything was
happening so fast. I couldn't keep track of what was going on. Who
was that woman? My heart lurched into my throat when I first saw her. Was
she to be someone special in my life?
I had never really thought much about dating. Well, I have, but
when you’re home schooled and nearly forbidden from ever leaving the house, the
social skills required to date are severely retarded. It’s not like I have seen
very many girls waltz through the front door of my house.
Instead, I've found myself staring out the window at the end of the
school day to watch the kids walk home. I guess you could say I’m a
stalker. So to meet a woman as beautiful as the one I saw in my vision, I must
have spread my wings a little. Probably much to my mother’s chagrin.
With my heart rate finally settling down, I stood from the chair
and paced the room. The marble mantelpiece above the fireplace was coated
with dust. I traced my initials into it. They could very well still be
there in a few years when my younger brother visited the room for his own rite
of passage. The fireplace was cold and dark, not having a fire in it for a very
long time. There were stale ashes and bits of wood in the crib from a distant
fire. A chilly breeze blew down the open flue. I reached for the knob to close
it when…
The bricks were warm to the touch, almost hot. The fire had been
burning for awhile. Aside from the glow from the flames, a single lantern on
the mantle cast long shadows through the darkened room. The chair in the
center of the room was gone, replaced by a sectional couch occupied by the same
woman I had seen in the park vision. A flash of lightning and an immediate clap
of thunder resounded outside the windows. The power flickered on once, twice,
then remained as dark as when I first awoke in this vision. She was wrapped in
a blanket with her legs pulled up underneath her and maybe a few years older
than when I had seen her previously. Her hands rested on the lump of a pregnant
belly. She smiled as I focused on her beautiful face. She let the blanket drop
to invite me in and…
I steadied myself against the cold mantle. The fire was gone and
the room returned to loneliness and dreariness. These visions were sapping my
energy and my thoughts. I barely got used to what I was seeing before I was
pulled away. There had to be a way to stay in the vision state for a longer
period. I had to figure out a way. The constant tearing from reality to fantasy
was scrambling my brain and settling my heart on fire, ready to explode from my
chest. I was going to die before the day was over if I couldn't find away to
control what was happening to me.
I tapped my forehead roughly and said
aloud “Think. Think. Think.” It occurred to me that I was impersonating Winnie
the damn Pooh. This made me laugh for a second. I still had my wits about me.
For now.
I thought to myself: Do I let the
visions flow, as dad told me to do? Or do I try to interact? I’ve tried both strategies
and neither seems to have worked. Should I read more letters? Or just wait? I
feel like this room should come with a manual. Or dad and great grandpa could
have better prepared me.
I was suddenly awash in anger. Yeah, dad
and great grandpa should have definitely prepared me better instead of just
throwing me to the wolves.
I was in another forest. But this one
felt different. I wasn’t in ‘Nam.
I was in … Wyoming?
Again, I had no idea what made me think - or rather realize - that I was in Wyoming. These trees
looked just like any other trees. But something inside me told me I was
definitely in Wyoming.
Alone. In the woods.
What could this possibly show me about
my future? Just then I saw it. Staring at me. Drooling. A wolf. A North
American Gray Wolf. Staring me down. And then he stopped. In fact, everything
stopped. The wind stopped. The trees stopped moving. The noises in the forest
stopped. I think, in fact, time stopped.
I walked over to the wolf and touched
it. It was real. The trees were real. I was really here. I thought. Or not.
Maybe I was just slipping into insanity.
I decided that if time restarted, I
wanted not to be in front of a hungry wolf so I walked through the forest
touching everything I could. To assure myself that I was not, in fact, insane.
But why would I appear in Wyoming in front of a
wolf right when I was thinking about dad and great grandpa throwing me to the
wolves? I mean, that’s too coincidental to be a coincidence. And I wondered if
time was stopped here, was it stopped everywhere? Was the sun moving across the
sky back at home? Or was I stuck in one position living between the ticks of a
clock?
And just like that, I was back home.
Back in the room on the third floor.
So can I control it? I thought wolves, I
got wolves. I thought home. I came home. It was time to try another letter.
This one from my brother’s box. April 11, 2009.
“Mom, I know it’s been a while since
I’ve written. I’m sorry about that. I’ve really been deep in my own head. As
big a change as it’s been living in this asylum for the past eight months, I
have a strange feeling that the biggest changes in my life are yet to come.
“I fear that these changes are not good
at all. I want to escape. But I’m not sure if that’s a literal thing or figurative.
Whatever I may do, please know that I love you.
“Love, Steve.
“PS - Miles. Run. It’s a trap. Get out
now.”
Um. What? I did a double take a read it
again. “PS - Miles. Run. It’s a trap. Get out now.”
What the hell did that mean? My eyes
widened like saucers. My heart raced. And sweat immediately began to pour from
my forehead.
Was this a joke? A premonition? Was this
a vision? A trick? I can’t run. I can’t leave. I’ll go crazy like he did.
Right? And yet here’s this letter talking about escaping. And closing with a
note to me that I need to get out now because it’s a trap.
I went to sit in the chair to steady my
thoughts and stopped myself. If I sit in that chair, I’ll end up somewhere
else. Somewhen else. And Steve just warned me. I went to look out the window to
try to discern what time it was. I wished there was a clock in here.
As I looked out the window, I’m watching a basketball
game. The New York Knicks are playing the LA Lakers. I’m at Madison Square
Garden. Sitting next to me
is the woman from the park, and next to her is a young boy. Next to him is my brother Steve.
“Thank you so much little brother for
getting me out for the day,” he said to me. “I don’t remember the last time a
hot dog tasted so good.”
“Yeah, of course,” I replied. “That’s what family’s
for.”
“So Stevie,” my brother turned his
attention to the young boy, “What’s your old man told you about your crazy
uncle?”
My son - I’m guessing it was my son -
looked at me with fear in his eyes, obviously not knowing how to answer my
brother.
“It’s okay, Stevie,” my wife said.
“You’re uncle’s just pulling your leg. He’s not crazy. Right, Steve?”
“Obviously,” my brother said back. “You wouldn’t name
your son after a crazy man, would you Miles? Would you, Rose?”
Rose?
And just like that, I’m back in the tenement.
“Ok, screw
this” was the first thought that fired into my head. I had enough of this back
and forth. My brain hurt. My brain actually hurt. What
was the point of showing me all of this? Why did Steve warn me to run? Then it
occurred to me that maybe things are not what they appeared to be. I started to
wonder if Steve was part of something much bigger. I started to wonder what my
father and grandfather were really up to.
It
felt good to have coherent thoughts again, but the problem was I was having
these coherent thoughts while sitting in the chair. Suddenly I felt a cold
blast go up my spine and the rite took hold yet again. At
least, I think it did. I was still in the chair and, as far as I could tell, I
was still in the room. No parks, no basketball games, no forests in Wyoming, and no crazy Viet Nam guy trying to stab me. But
why was I here.
“You’re
here because the night is over and you can leave.”
Wow,
that voice sounded really familiar. I could see someone coming from out of the
corner of the room, but he was in a wheelchair and looking old. Even as old as
the person appeared to be, I knew right away it was me. I reacted with the
first thing that popped into my head.
“Well,
great. Now I am literally talking to myself.”
“Very
funny. It is time to get us out of here. Time to leave.”
As my
older self was talking to me, the face shifted back and forth between my face
and my grandfather’s face. It was almost like getting bad reception on a
television and then having the picture snap back into place, but I never knew
which face I would see.
“Time
to leave, eh? So who are you supposed to be?”
“I’m
you. You aren’t that far gone to recognize yourself, are you?”
As my
older self was saying the phrase “recognize yourself,” his face quickly snapped
to my grandfather’s face and then back again.
“No,
really. Who are you?”
The
figure in the wheelchair sighed, stood up, took off his glasses, and his face
suddenly completely changed to Steve’s face. All at once, the whole figure
changed into present day Steve. He reached out to shake my hand, but I just
didn’t trust it.
“Now
you don’t trust your own brother?”
“What the hell is going on?”
“It really is time to go Miles. The night is over and you can
leave the room now. You made it buddy! You did something I could never do!”
No,
no, no. That did not make any sense. My grandfather said that he and my father
would come get me. That is when I started to freak out.
“No!
You’re wrong! I have to stay in here or else I will go crazy! Like you did! I
can’t leave yet!”
“Miles, listen to me . . .”
But
the voice trailed off and now I was very afraid that I had officially lost my
mind. Was it really time to go? My father and grandfather didn’t say what would
happen if I stayed in too long. They just told me not to leave early. Maybe
they lied. Maybe that was the test.
My
mind raced. I didn’t know what to do. Suddenly there was a knock at the door
and a female voice saying my name. I didn’t recognize the voice. Was it real?
Was it another vision? I
started to sweat again. I decided that I had enough. I decided I would come out
now, whether it was time or not. I knew what the consequences would be. I
didn’t care. I couldn’t keep doing this. I
grabbed the doorknob, but it wouldn’t turn. I started pounding on the door, but
nothing happened. I kept trying and trying to turn the doorknob, but it
just wouldn’t go. I pressed my body up against the door and pushed as I turned
the knob one last time. The knob turned, and I burst out into the hallway and
fell to the floor.
I
looked up and instantly recognized the woman and boy standing over me with
looks of concern on their faces.
“Rose?
Stevie?”
“Honey,
what were you doing in there? Ever since your father died all you do is spend
hours and hours in that dark room.”
"What?
How? When?" I stuttered. I thought I had it all figured out, but now I was
just as confused as before. I glanced down at my hands. There were no letters
but it was not my hands I was looking at. They were older, lined with years of
work, and lassoed by a gold ring which was biting into the skin around it. It
was as though years had passed since it had first been placed there. I was
eighteen years old. I wasn't married and I wasn't old.
My wife, that
woman, whoever she was, helped me to my feet, whereupon I immediately sank back
to the floor. The reality, or maybe in this case, the fantasy of what was going
on around me was unbearable. I could smell the sweat dried on my body, and the
underlying stench of decay from a forgotten and ignored room in a forgotten and
ignored tenement.
"How long
have I been in there?" I asked.
"Since
your mother went back to Florida
after the funeral three days ago. Is everything okay?" Rose asked kneeling
in front of me. The boy scurried behind his mother's skirts, reminding me of my
younger brother.
"Just
sitting in there?"
"Yeah. Reading letters. You keep
that big box of them in the closet in that room," she motioned toward the
open door behind him. "I used to like that room, but when your
great-grandfather died, you went off the deep end and made up some hauntingly
bizarre stories about it. And then you closed it off to the rest of us. Some of
your stories are great, but those about that room scare me. I'm very proud that
you've made a wonderful living for us with your stories, but I wish you'd just
stop those ones about this place. This is our home."
So I was a
writer? When did that happen? Writing was one of the things my mother used to
punish me with whenever I disobeyed or failed to complete one of my
assignments. By far, writing was my last favorite of activities. This was
definitely a vision and I was still sitting in the chair in the middle of the
room. I stared past my "wife" to the wall beyond her.
Strangely, the
hallway seemed brighter than I ever remembered. The drab, off-ugly wallpaper
was gone, replaced with that chic, faux painting. Obviously, Rose had taken a
keen interest in redecorating the tenement after we were married and moved into
the old place. A ceiling light appeared at this end of the hallway outside the
doorway of great-grandpa's room and the forbidden room where none had ever been
before. This new brightness gave this part of the house a much warmer, lived in
feeling than before. I sort of liked it.
Still, this was
all a vision. What was it trying to tell me? Was this my future? I made it out
of the room, retained my fragile sanity, met this beautiful woman, and fell in
love? If this was where my life was heading, I was in for the long haul. I just
didn't want to miss all those experiences in between. I scooted on my but back
into the room.
"Call my
brother. I need to talk to him."
"You know
as well as I do that Seth is somewhere in Africa
on a mission. There are very limited options to get a message to him, and it
could take days for him to get back to us. He hasn't responded to the message
about your father yet. What makes you think this time will be different?"
"No. My
older brother, Steve."
"Steve?
What are you talking about? You're Steve."
I cocked my
head in confusion. Steve? My name was Miles. That was the most basic set of
facts about myself. I was Miles Patton. I had an older brother, Steve, who had
been through all of this. Insane or not, he would have some answers about what
was happening. By this point, the vision should have changed. I retreated
further into the room. Rose looked at me with something between pity and
genuine fear. It hurt me to see that in her eyes. I backed into something solid
that tumbled backwards. I looked behind me.
A stack of
hardcover books was in disarray on the floor. I saw my face staring back at me
from the back covers. I grabbed one and turned it over in my hands.
The
Continued Tales From Beyond the Door. A stylized picture of the
room I was in appeared below the title. At the bottom was my name: Steven Miles
Patton, III.
