A Choice to Make

He finds himself sitting in an empty room.

He tries for a moment to remember how he came to this place, but it is as though he has, jumped, from one moment to the next. He remembers climbing into the auto, and reaching for the key to start the engine. But his next memory is of sitting here on this cold, hard floor.

It is the coldness of the floor which draws his attention outward for the first time. The walls of the room are nondescript, plain and flat, with no noticeable adornments or additions. The floor is smooth, it appears to be poured concrete. On the wall across from him there is a narrow door, not quite big enough for him to walk through standing straight. It has no handle or lock, no hinges that he can see, but there appears to be a small keyhole along one side.

His clothes are missing, but the items he had in his pockets, a set of four keys, his wallet, thirty seven cents in change, and the ticket he brought with him from home, are all laid out neatly on the floor a few feet in front of him.

He cautiously stretches out his arms and legs. They feel stiff, as though he hasn't used them in sometime, perhaps hours. Moving slowly, he rises and walks over to where his possessions are arrayed on the floor.

He picks up each of the items in turn and holds them in his hand, turning them slowly over and over. Why were these things left here, for him?

“Why?”

He picks up the wallet and opens it. It still holds his diner's card, his driving license, and the twenty three dollars he had with him that morning. The pictures of his sister and her daughter are still tucked away inside the folded up letter she sent him before the accident. He breathes a sigh of relief when he finds them, but quickly folds the letter back up without lingering on the picture itself.

He picks up the change. He expects it to be slightly warm, like change that had just been taken out of his pocket, but instead it is cool to his touch. He holds one of the pennies tightly in his fist for a moment, and feels it gather in some of the warmth of his body. He holds it up to his face and feels the warmth of the penny softly radiate against his cheek. It calms him.

“It's comforting.”

He picks up the ticket he had with him that morning. It was a ticket he had drawn on lottery, he always played the same numbers. 12. 3. 50. They had been, well, if not lucky, perhaps, preternatural. At least he told himself that. Those numbers had become something of a memento to him.

“A reminder.”

He picks up the keys. Four keys. The ignition key for his Morrie. His flat key. The key he used to open the small bakery he worked in. And the key to the footlocker he kept in his closet.

And one more.

“Five keys?”

He holds the alien key gently between his thumb and long finger pointed upwards. He turns it down and around in his hand, puzzling it intently. As a key, it looks no different nor more interesting than any of the other keys on the small loop he carries every day in his pocket. While he ponders this strange comer, he slips his finger through the loop and casually spins the keys into his fist. It is a habit he does unconsciously. He spins the keys and releases them, spins them and releases them, as he looks once more around the room.

His eyes once again settle on the strange door. Too small, with no hinges nor handle. And yet, that small keyhole. The keys spin into his fist once more, and he looks down at his hand. He is holding his flat key on top, but it is the unknown key which draws his attention.

He holds it between his fingers once more and brings it up to his eyes, obscuring his vision of the door.

“Perhaps?”

The cold of the concrete floor is beginning to seep into the souls of his bare feet as he gathers the rest of his belongings in his hands and shifts idly from side to side as he contemplates the door. How long has he really been in here? Who brought him here, and why? Are those answers beyond that door, perhaps only waiting for him to insert the unfamiliar key?

He thinks briefly of the longed for convenience of pants, not for their warmth, but rather their pockets, as he tries to clutch all his belongings in one fist. He keeps hold even of the coins. Perhaps they are not much, but they are one of the few things he has with him now which are knowably his own, and he has no wish to leave them behind.

As he approaches the door he holds the key more firmly in his grasp. He had hoped that closer examination would mean greater understanding, but such eludes him as he examines the finely chopped line which separates the edge of the door from the rest of the wall. Taking a deep breath, he inserts the key into the small slot near his waist.

“What are you waiting for?”

With a sense of finality, he attempts to turn the key to the right, only to find that it has no range in that direction. His anticipation flees him with the frustration of the ruined climax, and grudgingly, he turns the key back to the left. The key rolls smoothly in the cylinder, and he feels rather than hears a click, as something inside the door reacts to the spoliation.

And then nothing happens. He stands still, nude, holding his few possessions in his arms, with one hand outstretched towards the door. The door stands still, silent and sealed, joined to him through the key that is both inside it and inside his hand.

“Well what did you expect?”

He contemplates his next actions carefully, and once more looks around the room, perhaps inviting some inspiration from the barren walls. But none is forthcoming. With a despondent shrug, he pushes on the door with his opposite shoulder.

He almost falls forward as the door slides smoothly away from him in reaction to the pressure he applies. His mind tells him that such a solid door must be terribly heavy, and yet, it seems to glide away with the slightest touch. After only a few inches, the door stops again, but this time he can see a groove built carefully into the wall beside it. Removing the key from the lock, he pushes the door to the left into the cubby which seems shaped for this purpose, and it slides in just as effortlessly, fitting as perfectly there as it did in the wall to begin with.

As he moves through the now open portal, he notices passingly that there are no external pieces of protrusions on the end of the door. Only a small socket with which the door can be pulled from its resting place.

Beyond the door is something else. A place of memory and wild imaginings. He looks back over his shoulder and sees the characterless gray room open behind him. He turns again and here, before him, he finds a sea of shifting colors and senses.

He can smell the greens in the air, taste the vibrant smoothness of the surfaces at his feet. His ears hear pictures and thoughts from his childhood.

Here, he relives a moment when his father gave him a shiny red bicycle for his sixth birthday. Over there he can see himself hiding behind the walls of his grammar school with Thomas and Gordy and the bottle they stole from the headmistress's desk. Behind him he sees his first kiss, and his first spanking, and his first failure.

Somehow he is able to take in all these things at the same time. Somehow he is reliving them all at the same time. He spins in the room, still clutching those things removed from his missing pants pockets, and as he does, he sees once more the yawning portal back to the gray, featureless room where he first found himself.

“I know this place.”

And he does. For this place is himself, far more so than the few meager things he carries in his arms, far more so than all the worldly possessions of his life combined. This place is everything he has been and seen. And more.

He notices something as he relives every moment of his life simultaneously. There is a thread here. Something indecipherable, yet undeniable. Something connects every one of these moments, the memories he cherishes and those he does not. He can not name it, but he knows it's there.

He tries to focus on one memory. Not that one. The memory of this morning. How he arrived at this place.

He seems himself sit down behind the wheel. He seems himself reach for the key. And then he sees himself here. There is no memory in between.

“Something is missing.”

He rewinds the memory. His hand retreats from the key. He climbs out of the Minor. He sees himself roll back the window and remove the thin plastic tube. He sees himself return to the house, and sit down at the table. He seems himself pick up the picture, and the letter. For a long time, the scene doesn't change.

He watches as he sits, holding the picture in one hand and the letter in the other. He could see the picture now if he wanted to, but instead he chooses to focus on himself. He doesn't want to see it.

After an eternity, he sees himself fold the picture up inside the letter, tuck it into his wallet, and put the wallet back inside the pocket of his pants. He stands up and leaves the room.

He can feel it. That thread. The link between forever and today. He plays the scene forward again, and watched as he takes out the letter and picture, looks at them, drops them on the table and walks out to the garage.

He seems himself put the plastic tubing in through the window, and sit down behind the wheel and reach for the key.

“So that's how I got here.”

The thread extends infinitely in one direction. But he can feel it ending in him now. He can feel the loose, frayed end of the thread in his breast.

He holds the penny in his fist again, but this time it fails to warm to his touch. He holds it up to his face and it feels cool against his cheek.

“Can I relive that moment? Can I change it?”

It seems as though he has all the time in the world here. He begins at the beginning, and walks slowly through his life. Sometimes he relives a certain moment or memory again and again before moving forward away from it. Sometimes he slides past moments in one go. But never quickly. He wants to relive even his painful moments. He wants it all to last forever.

In time, perhaps in forever, he reaches that memory of eight months earlier. When he received a call. There had been an accident. A crash. Something no one could have prevented. He had made supper that evening. After he hung up the phone he immediately ran to his room and pulled the crumpled letter from the drawer of his desk. He smoothed it out carefully, straightening every wrinkle, and placed the picture he'd taken of them only days before down in its center.

He wanted to race away from this memory. He wanted a chance to change it. But it was not something he could change. Not from this place. Because the thing he wanted to turn out differently hadn't happened to him. He wondered if they had been given the chance. Had they chosen to leave things as they were?

“Did they choose to leave?”

The remainder of his memories were boring. Characterless. He had moved through each day like a sad doll. He had slept, and eaten, and occasionally bathed, but he had done nothing of consequence. Not until this morning.

This morning he had done something of great consequence. Something powerful. He had made his first real decision in eight months.

“And now you want to change that?”

He pondered that question for a moment. For forever and a day. He could. He knew that. From here, he could change anything. Except the one thing he wanted most to change. That thing was not his to decide.

But this was.

“Did they choose to leave?”

Could he?