Doors
When I was a child I couldn’t sleep at night. I grew up and learned how to sleep but before I learned to sleep I went to many doctors. One doctor told me it was because of the city. Because of the sounds and lights that came in through the walls and windows.
Last night for the first time in a long time I couldn’t sleep. There could have been many reasons for this:
I heard yelling from the upstairs neighbour
I heard the sound of trains go by
I saw light coming in from the street light
I saw light coming in from the cars
I saw and heard sirens.
When you can’t sleep it’s easy to blame the city. But the city never sleeps and you’ve been able to sleep many times before. So you have to look inside.
There could have been many reasons to why I couldn’t sleep but there was just one. I had a tiny, stupid, tiny question stuck in my head:
What is a door?
The dictionary says “A flat object that is used to close the entrance of something such as a room or building.” I won’t accept that because of “flat”, “object”, and “close the entrance”. Some doors are not “flat” and they don’t “close the entrance.” Sometimes I’d open a door, only to be greeted by a brick wall. One time I entered a room, I looked back and saw that the door was a fish tank. Then there were the doors which were locked. The keys for these doors, I’m fairly certain, have never existed. So if a door was never opened and can never be opened, and was not made with the purpose to be opened, is it still a door?
“ I don’t know.”
“ What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then who knows?”
“I don’t know.”
I finally decided what looks and feels like a door is a door. The fish tank is a door because it feels like a door, and the door to the brick wall is a door because it looks like a door. I also decided I must be severely mentally ill. Everything I thought happened the last few days must have been a figment of my imagination.
If I look sane, but I feel insane, than am I insane? And if I look insane, but I feel sane, am I —
“ You’re over thinking this, darling.”
“ What?”
“You’re overthinking. A door is a door! I offered you a simple deal: Count the doors in my house, and I will get you a ticket to anywhere in the world. A simple deal, that you’re now making me regret offering!”
Then she laughed.
Loud, long belly laughs. Deep laughs. I don’t think her belly is where they come from, it must be somewhere else, somewhere deeper. I think they come from the centre of the earth. A dark hole connects the centre of the earth to her mouth and when she wants to laugh the sound waves travel from the center of the earth to her mouth and she spits the laugh out and it echoes for years and years ,she closes her mouth so you can’t hear it, but it goes on forever, inside her.
“I regret accepting your deal.”
The laughing stopped.
“Why’s that?”
“I used to be normal. You, your deal and your house, you’ve made me like yourself.”
Then there was silence. But I knew the laughs was echoing inside her.
“ Well darling, If you were so normal, why did you accept my deal in the first place?”
Deals
When I was a child all I wanted to do was run away. There was no reason for this, there was nothing at home that would push me to run but the urge was vigorously present, always. I wanted to be a pirate. Pirates were always on the sea, they didn’t belong anywhere on land, they had to keep moving, always. I thought that’s the life for me. I’d sail forever and I’d never belong anywhere on land.
What’s funny about living in a big city is that you can’t run away. At least not when you are a child. You wouldn’t know where to go. The city is too big for your little mind. You wouldn’t know where the city ends and where anywhere else begins. If you wanted to run away you couldn’t walk. You would have to do what the adults do. You would have to get on cars or trains or planes. But you can’t do that, not when you are a child. So you wait to grow up.
What’s funny about growing up is that you can’t run away. You would have responsibilities, responsibilities people older than you and forces bigger than you would claim for you. You might know how to leave the city, you might know what cars or trains or planes to get on, but you wouldn’t know where to go. You certainly wouldn’t know what to do when you get there. First there is the money issue. Then there is the fear, which contrary to what you believed when you were a child, only grows stronger as you grow older. So you stay. You let the city tower over you.
When a stranger offers you a strange deal, a deal which will get you the one thing you always wanted in life, to run away, you take it. It’s crazy to run away, so why shouldn’t the way out be crazy too? What if for once we believed in crazy?
“The deal is if you come to my house and count how many doors there are in my house, I will get you a ticket to anywhere you want in the world.”
It’s a simple deal, if you know what doors are, and if you know how to count.
I met her at the supermarket I worked at. She came in, grabbed cat food, asked “How much is this?” I said it should say the price on the bottom of the shelf she took it from. She was silent for a while, not breaking eye contact, then she offered her deal. Any other supermarket employee would’ve said “Sorry ma’m, we don’t do house calls.” But because I’m me I asked her the only question I though made sense to ask:
“Why?”
“Oh, I forgot to say, part of the deal is no questions asked. Well, you can ask them, but you won’t get an answer.”
She started laughing. I said my shift ends in an hour. She said that’s fine I’ll wait. I said where is your house. She said no questions. I thought about what I’d do when my shift ends. I would normally go home. But that day the thought of going home suffocates me. I said okay I’ll count your doors. I thought I don’t know if I believe her. But I’ll count the doors. I have nothing to do.
Doors
The first thing I noticed about her house was that it wasn’t a house. It was a maze camouflaged as a house.
Her house had four regular floors and three half floors. These were floors in between floors, laid out on stairs, entire rooms with beds and wardrobes and desks on slope. There were three elevators and many staircases. The floors were connected in hundreds of different ways and the rooms were interlaced in thousands. Every room was connected to the last, the last room was connected to the first. There were thousands of ways to move through the rooms. Thousands of different paths to take.
The first thing I noticed about counting doors was that it felt wrong to count doors. Counting other doors would’ve been fine, but the ones in her house didn’t want to be counted. I had to find techniques for counting doors.
Techniques for counting doors:
Start from the top floor. Count every door. Go down a floor. Repeat the process. Add the number of doors on each floor. You should reach the number of doors the house has.
When I counted a door and walked through it, closing it behind me, I could feel it change. I could picture the door mutate: change color shape material. I could picture it multiply: divide into two pieces from the middle. I could picture it lock itself, blend into the wall, disappear. As I moved deeper inside the house, I recalled the doors I counted like a distant memory. Something, somehow, would tell me : whatever door you counted doesn’t exist anymore.
I went down to the ground floor. She was sitting on an armchair. She was watching TV. I informed her:
“The doors in your house don’t want to be counted.” She told me:
“Count again, to make sure.”
She was always sitting on a leather armchair, in front of the TV, on the ground floor. She always had the TV on. She watched everything: news, game shows, cartoons, soap operas. The commercials.
The first thing I noticed about living with her was the constant stream of words. First there was the constant stream coming from the TV. Then there was her speaking. To whom she was speaking to, I was never sure of. It could’ve been me, it could’ve been herself. Sometimes I thought maybe she spoke to the TV.
When I was a child and I couldn’t sleep at night a doctor advised I listen to white noise. Her speaking was white noise to me. After I was tired from counting all day, I would go downstairs, she would always be there, I would listen to her talk. She spoke of everything. It was impossible to keep track, she would jump from one thing to another, with no apparent link, no transition, like changing the channel.
I would listen to the sounds she made, rarely comprehending their meanings. There would sometimes be exceptions.
“I think anyone over 75 should stop watching TV.”
“Why’s that?”
“They just can’t tell apart what’s happening on TV and what’s happening in their living room.”
Techniques for counting doors:
Every door you count, put a big X on it with red spray paint. This way you won’t count the same door twice.
I painted doors until it hurt to breath. A big X on every door. I walked in from the last door on the first floor, came out of the first door on the last floor. Painted every door I saw. I forgot doors had two sides. There were two X’s on one door. Red paint dripped down every door in the house, every door I could see. My hands were red.
Once I painted the entire house red, a cloud of chemicals floated inside, filled everywhere, every single room and corridor, traveled through the keyholes.
My eyes burned. I couldn’t see, the cloud blurred my vision. I couldn’t count.
When I was tired from counting I would go down to the ground floor. She’d be there always. I’d listen to her talk, it was white noise to me.
“ My mother in a hurry, telling me to prepare the table. I say for who? Who are we preparing the table for?”
She laughed. Loud, long belly laughs
“No answer! Just keeps yelling at me, we’ll have guests over! prepare the table! At seven pm, they’ll be here!”
“I keep asking her who? She says seven pm! We’re yelling at each other at this point. She finally says, the president and the lady asking him questions! The president and the lady, in our living room, imagine that!”
She laughed. Loud, long belly laughs. Deep laughs
When I moved through her house, sometimes I would feel I was being watched. I would open and close doors, I would run from door to door, to see if the feeling followed me. It usually would.
Techniques for counting doors:
Tie a string. As you move through the house, tie every door you exit and enter to each other. This way you’ll know which way you came from, you’ll know which doors you've opened and closed, which one’s you’ve counted.
I walked through rooms carrying a roll of string. I tied doors to doors. I looked back at my masterpiece: a string going through almost every door in the house. It became a big knot in the middle. I pulled it from one side three doors on the right opened. I pullet it from another five doors on the left closed shut. I couldn’t untie the string. I couldn’t count.
I was tired, I went downstairs, she was sitting on the armchair. TV was on. White noise. I asked her:
“How can I know what’s behind doors I can’t open?” She said:
“You can’t know.” I asked:
“What if there are more doors behind those doors?” She said:
“Remember what I told you?”
Yes. No questions asked. Well, you can ask them, but you won’t get an answer.
If a door was never opened and can never be opened, and was not made with the purpose to be opened, is it still a door?
As I attempted to count doors the doors resisted being counted. They evolved into stranger and stranger forms. They tried their best to make me stop and ask “What is a door?”
I found doors at the bottom of swimming pools. Doors on ceilings. Doors made of entire jungles. Doors made of traffic lights and underground stations.
Techniques for counting doors:
Lock all doors you see. So you can’t move through them. So you can’t open or close them. If you can’t know what’s behind them, they don’t exist. Make it impossible to count, so you don’t have to. While you’re at it, lock yourself in a room. So you can’t leave.
Normal people count many things. They count money. They count time. They count apples in a bag and they count books on a shelf. They count people in a room. They don’t count doors.
I’ve counted many things due to my line of profession: I’ve counted cartoons of milk, bags of rice, tins of beans. I’ve counted money. I’ve counted time. I can’t count doors.
The deal is if I count the doors in her house, Il get a ticket to anywhere I want. This is a simple deal, if you know what doors are and if you know how to count them. This is a simple deal, if you know where you want a ticket to. Do you want to leave?
I went downstairs, she was sitting on the armchair. She was watching the commercials. White noise. I informed her:
“Normal people don’t count doors.”
She asked me: “How do you know? Have you ever known normal people?”
If a question was never answered and can never be answered, and was not asked with the purpose to be answered, is it still a question?
One night I stopped counting doors and start moving through them, aimlessly. I felt that I was being watched. Not by her, not by a person. I thought maybe an animal.
I fell to my knees. I rested my forehead on the floor, or the ceiling.
I thought I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t count. I can’t leave.
The room was dark. I couldn’t tell where it ended, I forgot where it started. I couldn’t get up. I knew there was a door in this room, and it would take me to another place. I didn’t want to leave.
Her house had no plan. No guide. No design no method no pattern. Everything was interconnected and everything was in-cohesive. Everything was dependent on everything and everything was dysfunctional. You would have to come to terms with that.
I felt cold air sweep through. I raised my head, I raised my hand and I felt it push my hand back. I couldn’t understand first, but then I knew it was wind. I put my hand on the floor, and I thought I felt crumbs. I moved my hand around, and I thought I felt grain. I moved forward, and the pieces got smaller and gathered together. I picked a handful, let it pour from in between my fingers. I knew it was sand.
One thing about the house was you would always find ways out. Every room connected to the other, you would never be trapped. The exit could always be different to the entrance. You could always find a door other than the one you walked in from.
I saw light coming in as a straight line, just above the floor. I knew I found the door. I walked towards it, my feet digging in and out of sand. Everywhere was dark, except for this line of light. The wind got stronger and louder. I stood in front of the door, shaking from the wind. The wind louder then ever.
When I was a child and I couldn’t sleep, I would think I heard the door knock. Just as I was about to fall asleep, I would hear it. Just one knock, nothing else. I would wait for another, it would never come. I never opened the door. When I thought I heard it knock.
I turned the handle the wind pushed the door open. I couldn’t see from the light. I closed my eyes, I couldn’t see. I opened them slowly. I saw blue.
I couldn’t understand first, but then I knew it was the sea. I heard the waves crash in to one another and the shore. I smelled the salt. Nothing else in the horizon. Just the sea, crashing and pulling and pushing.
When I opened the door to the open sea I knew I had to leave.
I went downstairs she was sitting on the armchair. TV was off. She turned to me, she said:
“I had a dream last night. I was a pirate. I travelled the open sea, I never belonged to anywhere on land.” I asked her:
“Did you like it?”
“No, it was terrible. I never belonged to anywhere on land.”
Normal people don’t dream of becoming pirates. Normal people don’t dream of belonging, or not belonging. They belong.
Normal people go to bed at night. They don’t have trouble sleeping, and they sleep knowing the sun will rise in the morning.
Normal people wake up in the morning. They ride trains, pretending to know where they’re going.
Normal people don’t count doors.
There’s a knock on the door.
When I was a child and I couldn’t sleep, a doctor told me it was because of the city.
When I was a child and I couldn’t sleep, I would think I heard the door knock.
What the city teaches you is that you don’t answer every door that is knocked.
What the city teaches you is to sleep when chaos knocks on your door.
If a question can’t be answered, and wasn’t asked with the purpose to be answered, is it still a question?
There’s a knock on the door.
Normal people don’t ask questions with no answers.
Normal people ride trains, pretending to know where they’re going.
I asked her, how can I know them? How can they know me?
How do I know them?
There’s a knock on the door.
I answer it.
by Ipek Besik
“The inspiration for Doors came years ago, when I was thirteen, and I procrastinated writing it for seven years. I’m extremely happy I finally got the chance to write the story and see what it’s actually about in my Creative Writing course last term.”
Ipek is a first-year Media and Communications student from Istanbul, Turkey. She has been writing or thinking of writing since she was a child. She enjoys listening to people’s weird and scary stories, celebrity gossip, and long car rides. She isn’t really good at writing bios.
The thumbnail design is by Dimitar Dimitrov