Writer's Journal

(Might turn this into a longer story, at some point.  It does feel a little incomplete.)

“Well, you know, it’s bullshit,” Jake said, putting his glass down on the bar.

“I know, I know.”

“Who the hell is that shitbird professor to…”

I swiveled my eyes away from him, and looked down at the glass in front of me. The transparent brown liquid sloshed, as Jake slammed his fist down on the bar.

“To be fair, you did miss the deadline,” I said, slurring my words slightly and squeezing one eye shut in concentration.

“I talked it over with him,” Jake protested, “I told him that I had a wedding to go to, and that I would be remiss if I didn’t attend.”

I looked over at him, my eyebrows forming a straight, low line above my eyes.

“You just assumed that if you went to Las Vegas that someone would get drunk and get married? Do you base your life plans on sitcom plots?”

He looked away and slumped.

“Now you got it in, and he said you did a good job. You just broke with procedure and it caused problems. You know how it goes.”

He drank down the rest of his beer.

“Finish your drink, and let’s go,” he said.

#

We wove our way away from the bar, cutting through the campus lit with magnesium-bright white lights, toward home. The semester’s end parties could be heard from where we stood. Jake didn’t feel like celebrating, just erasing.

Like always, I was dragged along.

We hopped a fence and crossed the soccer field; Jake produced a flask, and I lit a cigarette. I handed him the pack, and he handed me the flask. When I’d taken a swig and he’d lit up, we traded back.

At the other end of the field, the side toward the science building, the fence was higher, but had been worked loose. I lifted up the bottom edge, and Jake slipped under before I followed.

On the other side of campus, it was back to the residential streets. We walked a block before it happened.

There are certain moments that change the course of your life. Muggings. Weddings. Car Crashes. Graduations. Spontaneous human combustion.

For these moments, you should generally be sober.

One of these moments was waking for me and Jake at the end of the block: In an empty lot, there was a freestanding door that had never been there.

It had no frame–it was simply a door sitting upright, askew as if open. A sliver of light came from its edge, as if it were a portal into an invisible building.

“What the hell?” Jake asked, standing on the sidewalk, looking at it.

“Is that a door?” I asked.

“Give me a smoke,” Jake said.

“Give me a drink,” I responded, handing him the pack of smokes.

“Give me an explanation,” he replied, handing me the flask.

“Don’t have one,” I took a swig and lit up a smoke of my own.

He took a drag off the cigarette, then a deep drink.

I looked at the door, not saying anything. My lips were dry, and I forgot to blink.

“What’s on the other side?” Jake croaked.

“uh…”

“Come on,” he said, “Let’s check it out.”

He walked up to it, and reached out to put his hand on it, before turning to me.

“What are you waiting for?” he asked.

“Something that makes sense,” I responded.

“C’mon, Niels, have they dropped yet? You’re scared of a door?”

I shrugged.

“Not one that’s got a building to go with it,” I protested.

He looked back at the door, and pushed it open.

“See? Doesn’t bite.”

“There’s a hallway beyond it. How do you explain that?” I responded, pointing.

He snorted, and then stepped in, walking on in deeper.

I waited a moment, as he receded down into the hallway beyond.

“Aw, Christ,” I said, following him in.

#

The hallway was made from gray light, but there was a doorway at the other end, and I could see Jake’s silhouette.

Pushing past him, dust rose from my footsteps.

It was an overcast day on the other end, but the scenery was familiar. The street signs, the road, the buildings.

We were exactly where we had been, but everything was wrong.

Nothing was growing here–the grass of the lot, always overgrown, was calcified and dry, the trees were barren black shadows stretching upward.

No bird flocked in the sky, but there were shapes up there: some with two wings, some with four, some solid, some liquid. The silhouettes were indistinct, but troubling.

“What…uh…what’s going on here?” I asked.

“Give me a smoke.”

“Give me a drink.”