Window to Where?

When one door closes another one will open. When one door closes another one will open. When one door… That’s what he said to me before he popped off, the goat man who bears a striking resemblance to the flute playing god Pan. Now here I stand staring down at an infinitely long hallway with brown wood doors all identical on either side. Millions of them, trillions of them. If I go through one how will I ever get back out to find the open one? Shit.

I can’t believe I’m in this predicament. I was merely hanging out, surfing through Virtu-World, the virtual world and network so many of us commune in these days, when something caught my eye on the right. When I turned my head to get a closer look something blinked and was gone. I slowed down my board and veered off the Virtu-way almost causing an accident. I wasn’t quit sure where I was. I had never gotten off in this sector.

Looking around all I could see were run down space programs with holes in the starry skies and the waistoids who frequented here because they couldn’t handle the space and speed of the rest of the Virtu-World. Where did I see that flash? Maybe it was a rouge star whose script had gone off the grid or something.

Suddenly I saw it again, this time to my left, as I headed south against the traffic I was just speeding in. As I moved closer to it, wedged between two old Horror House program buildings, I saw it. A long thin sliver of light so bright that if I looked directly at it my pupils hurt. I got off my hoover board and walked up to it. It was beautiful and kind of scary. As I walked around it I realized it wasn’t a sliver, it was a window. A window to what? To Where?

I put my hand up right in front of it. Do I touch it? What happens if my hand burns off or just doesn’t come back if I pull my arm out? What happens if I go in and can’t ever get out? Eh, fuck it. I slowly put my pinky in first (after all who needs it anyway). It felt like nothing and I pulled it out unharmed. This experimenting continued for a few minutes longer as I put more and more of my arm in and out of the window.

My curiosity finally got the better of me and I pushed my head through. There he was, standing in a long hallway of doors. Pan, a mythological Greek character who plays a flute made out of reeds and dances with nymphs, was standing in a hallway of doors, through a window suspended in Virtu-Cyber-Space. Just your typical day.

He grinned, grabbed me by the head and pulled me threw. I fell on the ground at his goat legs and looked up. He couldn’t have looked more mischievous than if he was painted in a Greek tapestry.

“What did you do that for?” I asked rubbing my head as I stood up.

“Why not?” he countered.

“Right, of course,” I said tartly looking around at my new surroundings. “What is this place?” I walked down the hall a little bit touching the doors with my fingertips. Each one I touched was vibrating and none of them had doorknobs.

“This place is the place,” he said.

“Oh right, the place. Thanks for clearing that up.”

“The place where everything begins and everything ends. The place where all things everywhere come together.”

“Uh huh, and in this place of places where does each door go?”

“Don’t you want to find out?”

“You’re just full of helpful answers, aren’t you?”

He just continued to stand there with a smirk on his face, a glint in his eye, and his hands behind his back.

“And which one of these are you from?”

“None of them,” he replied. “And all of them.”

“Great, well that settles that.” I walked back to the end of the hall, a blank wall now but what had once been a glowing window of wonder, where he was standing, leaning my back up against it. Pan turned around to look at me, still grinning.

“So how would I get into one of these doors? There aren’t any handles.”

“I will open one.” He raised his hand and a door about a 1/3 of the way opened and a shimmering blue light bounced off the white floor. I started to take a step towards it, uncontrollably propelled by my curiosity but stopped.

“How do I get out of this place?”

“Get out? I’m offering you infinity and you want out,” he rebuffed. I was taken aback. A real answer.

“I mean in case, how do I get back to virtu-world so eventually I can wake up in my own real world?”

“The answer you seek will reveal itself when it’s ready.”

“When it’s ready? When what is ready? Oy.”

“Are you ready to begin?”

“Begin what? And how do I get out of one door into this hall and then into another door?”

“X marks the spot.” He handed me a leather necklace with a dazzling blue stone hanging on it. It looked sort of like a sapphire but clearly wasn’t. I took it and held it up into the unknown light cascading around the hall. I felt slightly hypnotized by it. Then Pan blew a low note into his flute and I snapped out of it.

“Be careful of the stone. It can be helpful but harmful. You will need this to find the door you came through after you have closed it behind you.”

“Ok.” I said skeptically putting it on over my head, slipping the stone under my shirt.

“Ready?”

“Ready? Who knows?” I took a deep breath. What lay ahead of me? Did I want to find out? Yes I fucking did.

“Yes I’m ready,” I replied.

“When one door closes another door will open. Be careful not linger for doors do not remain open forever.” And with a small pop he vanished leaving a slight echo of his final words and a few wisps of smoke behind him.

It’s that time. The time that defines who you are and the course of your history, your destiny. I must remember to enjoy the ride. As I walk closer to the door I can hear a faint melody and smell grass, lilacs and, and…is that carrot cake? Standing in front of the door I poke my head through. I can see faint blurry lines of moving figures. Are they human? Are they kind? Time to find out I guess. With one food inside the door and one hand on it I step forward, walk through and shut the door softly behind me.

Let the journey begin.