This is the Way (933 word short story)
This is the Way
by Kyriakos Chalkopoulos
This is the way. I followed the path to the end. Once I get behind that door everything will be fixed...
I really believed this, but when I tried to open the door at the far end of the waiting hall, the handle resisted, so it was locked. After knocking twice impulsively, someone slid a piece of paper under the door, where it was written: “This is not the way. You’ve made a mistake”.
“Nonsense!”, I grumbled, “this is the way...”. Then he slid a second piece of paper, the gist of the new note being that I could inquire further and he’d answer in writing.
After thinking it through, I asked my first question:
“Who are you?”.
“I am your hand that keeps you hanging from the railing. If you command me to let go, I’ll do so, but first I have to revolt”.
Since this reply seemed to me neither clear-cut nor convincing in the slightest, I immediately prompted him to be more open with me. The next note read as follows: “I am the one who has to keep the door closed. It doesn’t matter what I am, beyond that. Your own way does not intersect with mine other than in this location”.
Given I had already received four replies in writing, and each time would carefully place the read pages on the empty chairs of the waiting hall, I felt now was the time to put a great enigma to rest: how could he write so fast? It never took him more than a second to slid through the answer… But what I read in the next piece of paper got me in a spin!
“These replies are not being written now. They were already prepared. The pieces of paper with the answers are next to me and I choose the one called for each time”.
Trying to get over the shock, I hastily inquired as to whether he ever means to unlock the door. Unluckily, my hands were shaking, so the page with the hideously eerie responce fell to the floor – immediately this caused some office employee to come stand on my left side, asking angrily that I pick it up. I complied, because as long as the door in front of me remained closed I’d do well to avoid having to face more problems.
The new reply from beyond the door, however, was once again ominous: I had asked if this person was amenable to unlock the door at some point, and he wrote that he door wasn’t locked in the first place; it’s just that every time I tried to open he kept it closed by applying pressure to the handle.
“Will you never let me pass?”, I went on to ask – this time rather flatly, so as to not attract more attention from the office’s employees. By now all the chairs to the right of the door had at least one written paper on them. In the new page I read:
“You are like someone who finds himself in the room of a tall building: wishing to go to the street below, you are thinking of jumping out of the window”.
I did not like that image one bit, so returning for the time being my focus to the very first of his messages I asked what he meant by saying I had made a mistake. To this I got the answer that while my calculation regarding the area I wished to reach was correct, it being behind the door, I wasn’t allowed to reach it this way, and he went on to suggest I look for a different point of entry.
“What is behind the door?”, I pronounced, in the most docile tone yet.
“If you must know, there’s a very narrow corridor, covered by a bright, orange wallpaper with a floral motif”.
“What’s at the end of the corridor?”
“Solid walls on two sides, and a small opening to the right, just below the ceiling. But you can’t go through there”.
Not wishing to ask anything else, I announced my decision and demanded he let me pass. Instantly, as if they had conspired to do so, three employees of the office appeared, one to the left, one to the right and the last one right in front me, and this last one, being their leader, in much the same indignant tone of my own proclamation to the person behind the door, said: “And we don’t want you talking to a door. Now go”.
When I got back to my apartment, I kept thinking of the corridor behind the door. I could imagine myself there, and it was so beautiful... But then I wondered whether in my next visit to the office I’d be again blocked by those employees. After all, it was clearly wrong of me to think they’d leave me be if I’d just comply to the order given by the first one, and pick up the paper that fell through my hands in that moment of extreme nervousness – or reward me for having been so diligent in placing all read papers on the empty chairs, and always speak so softly. Despite all that, they still intervened, when it was most crucial!
Is it, therefore, possible that those people, complete strangers to myself, are working together with the one behind the door? In his own words, he’d have to revolt if I pressed him to do as I wished . His power to bring about their timely intervention – was this the revolt he spoke about?
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By the way, I have adapted this into a free-to-download game:
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