The Door, page 3
A bunch of images appeared, most from paintings and other artsy sites but some of people standing in the middle of the road in professional photos.
In the results below, again, mostly artistic mentions and some legal links about law pertaining to standing in the middle of the road.
I tried again, “waking up and things are different”
I sneered a laugh when I saw a bunch of psychiatric website links pop up. “Sounds about right.”
My favorite was ‘Hypnopomic Hallucinations’, literally the definition of dreams that are wayyyyy to real.
“Maybe?!?” I questioned myself as I gingerly leaned back in my chair.
My brief gaze toward the computer ended as I spoke louder than I should have, “ooh, parallel universe”!
I lunged forward so chaotically, I nearly kicked the chair out from under me. My fingers landed on the keyboard and i typed as fast as I could,,,,, “pw5wll4l unig4ter”
Under my chuckle I realized my left hand landed one row above the “asdf” standard and tried again.
“parallel universe”
Naturally plenty of internet space and science-y websites and links, but more importantly the definition courtesy Wikipedia: ‘A parallel universe, also known as a parallel dimension, alternate universe or alternate reality, is a hypothetical self-contained plane of existence, co-existing with one's own. The sum of all potential parallel universes that constitute reality is often called a “multiverse".’
“Hypothetical my ass,” I muttered to myself. It was the first thing that made any sense since I saw the damn door.
I slouched back in the chair and hit play on my GiggiFi phone app. Drowning myself in music couldn’t hurt. Over the next few minutes, while lost in my own mind, I unknowingly began writing things down on the notepad situated in the middle of my desk..
At the turn of the song, I refocused on the piece of paper I held in my hand.
“Affair,” “happy?” “door”, “dream”, “drunk?” were just some of the words in an otherwise undecipherable scattering of ideas.
Underneath everything, I jotted down one final thought, “where is the other me?”
After putting my Jack Torrance influenced piece of paper in my pocket, I set out to uncover anything else I could about my ‘affair.’ I opened my Google Drive folders and did some hunting and pecking. There were several things in there that I didn’t recognize, and many appeared to be related to finances and/or work.
I found my mouse hovering over ‘Lacrosse,’ I’d never played and never really watched, so I opened the folder.
That folder led to two more, ‘Cannons’ and ‘Other’.
I clicked on ‘Other’ and bam, there it was, dozens of photos of Kara in all sorts of skimpy outfits and... yup, some with no outfit at all.
In a quick second, I exited the folder. “Why am I cheating on Shannon?” I asked myself. A subconscious shiver ran up and down my body as the words “cheating on Shannon” escaped my mouth. It was also pretty evident it wasn’t just the other me that had an attraction to Kara. I could not unsee what I just saw.
My phone dinged and interrupted my thoughts, it was a text from Kara. “Quick walk outside?”
After hesitating ever so briefly, and against my better judgment, I sent a thumbs up reply.
Three minutes later, we were outside walking in silence on the trail.
“Did you snap out of it?” she asked, breaking the outrageously stagnant dead air that hung between us.
After our first encounter that morning, I clearly wasn’t going to rationalize my new found life with her first.
“I think so. Think I drank too much last night,” I said.
“Me too,” she replied as she gently touched my forearm.
“I’m,” with a quick pause, “sorry about earlier. You mind if we cool it for the weekend? Family stuff.”
“Well, ok,” she said as she reached behind me and squeezed my ass. “I had pretty big plans for you this weekend though.”
Feeling the blush burn onto my cheeks I somehow managed to say “raincheck for next weekend?”
This parallel universe thing was sounding more convincing by the minute. Thus, my only hope was whether I could figure out what actually happened and how to return to my universe as quickly as I could.
As we returned to the office, she rubbed the side of my face again, “deal. You want to grab lunch later?”
“I’ve actually already got plans with Will,” finally a chance for an honest answer.
“Tell that asshole he owes me child support for last month,” she spit out.
The look on my face had to be priceless. I knew Will and Kara had a thing for six months or so shortly after Kara and I started at GiggiFi, but a kid? That was completely new information.
“Ummm, ok,” was about all I could muster for a reply. At that point I was hoping that the response just meant ‘I’m uncomfortable making that request to my best friend.’
Apparently that was all it took for her to leave me alone and she disappeared without another word.
My phone told me it was 11 a.m. so I grabbed another cup of tea and returned to my office.
Greg and Daunte walked by on their way back to their desks. Greg popped his head in, “Max, no bike today?”
Many Fridays, I chose to ride my bike halfway to the office. I’d drive about halfway, park the Jeep in a ‘park ‘n ride’ lot, then hop on my navy blue Bianchi road bike.
“No, too preoccupied to ride today.”
“I hear ya chief, if you’ve got time this afternoon, can we talk?”
“Sure, how’s two work?”
“Done,” he said as he turned and walked out.
I got up and closed the door again, then I reached in the bottom drawer of my desk to pull out my personnel files. I grabbed his file from the front of the drawer, “Greg Flipsch.” There was a small purple tab stuck inside Greg’s file.
I laid the file out on my desk and opened to the tab.
It was a short note about disciplining Greg over improper communication with a label rep. Apparently he’d taken a female rep out for dinner and made a bit of a fool of himself personally and professionally. There were a couple handwritten notes on the back page about him and Teryl knocking heads.
My phone beeped again notifying me of a new text.
“i’m early, 11:30?” from Will.
It was 11:25 already, and Tito’s Food Truck was in the park today. I replied back “ok” and left to join him.
SEVEN
The short walk to Tito’s gave me just enough time to remember a particular moment in time where a relationship with Kara nearly became a reality.
It was a few weeks after we’d started working at GiggiFi. Our founders had thrown a big party at a clubhouse located in the midst of the wealthy subdivision one of them lived in.
Shannon was on a business trip that week, so I went solo.
The party started off as a celebration for the first major upgrade to the company servers. That upgrade opened up the possibilities for us to fully develop our app.
It didn’t take long for the booze from the open bar to start flowing.
Around 11pm, I found a secluded spot to check my phone messages. I ran straight into Kara as I rounded the corner, spilling both our drinks on the tile floor.
Once we recomposed ourselves from laughter, the conversation moved to how much we were enjoying the party and the job.
I offered to get her a refill as I retrieved one for myself. Upon my return to the corner of our collision, I found she had migrated to another area of the clubhouse.
Over the next ten minutes, I continued to hunt for her to hand over the drink that I’d retrieved for her. Of course the longer it took to find her, the emptier her glass became as I drank from each of the two glasses that had been weighing my hands down.
Eventually, I found her near the bar on the basement level of the clubhouse. She was sitting at a felt covered table, staring out the basement doors at the putting green that sat just a few yards from the tee for hole number one on the adjoining golf course.
I sat two empty glasses on the table in front of her and said something about how she must have been hiding from me. Shannon surely would have called it flirting.
She giggled and asked where her drink was.
I laughed and told her I drank it as “my fuel to find her and continue our discussion.”
Thinking I could get us both yet another refill from the bar on that floor, I turned around to find the bar locked up for the evening with a sign that said ‘after 11pm, all alcohol can only be purchased upstairs.’
“Well damn,” I said and turned around to say something funny about the situation.
Before I could get a single word out, our drunken bodies collided again as she had risen from her seat.
“I’m so sorry again,” I said while laughing.
I laughed even harder to her “at least this time no alcohol abuse occurred” response.
With no notice, she planted a kiss on my cheek and began to gently rub my arm.
I stepped back to get my bearings and make sure whatever that was, it didn’t go any further.
“You see that colony of fake trees in the opposite corner?” she asked.
Before I could reply, she continued, “if you weren’t married, I’d be pulling you back there to have my way with you.”
“Oh Kara,” I stammered. “Um, wow. That’s the alcohol talking. I love Shannon, and wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize my family.”
“I know,” she plopped back down onto the chair. “You’re amazing Max. Shannon is so lucky to have you.”
“I think we both should call it a night, can I get you a Lyft?” I asked her.
“No, I’ll get one after I use the ladies’ room.”
We were back to laughing by the time we returned upstairs.
My Lyft arrived right on time, and I told her I’d see her on Monday.
We never spoke of the incident again, and there was no reason to ever tell Shannon as nothing happened.
I stood a few feet from the side of Tito’s food truck lost in a moment considering what might have happened if I had reacted to her kiss differently all those years ago.
The call of my name, “Maximus!” broke me from the light spell I was under.
EIGHT
Will was one of two people that called me by my full first name, the other being my mother. He was also my best friend. We met at a concert after-party many years prior. At that time, we found out we lived just a few blocks from each other. Naturally we began hanging out at the Booze Explosion. Will would eventually be the best man at my wedding to Shannon. He was also the only person besides Shannon that I could completely open up with.
He looked like a golfer that day. He was wearing a bright blue polo shirt with khaki pants and a comfy pair of tennis shoes. The only thing he was missing was a Herringbone cap.
Will spent a lot of time on his hair. It was one of his focal points. He was a master with the hair gel and frankly, combining that with his rugged jawline and piercing blue eyes, it wasn’t surprising why he was rarely without a female friend.
“You okay?” he asked, clearly noticing that I was lost in thought as I approached the food truck.
Tito’s was the best Vietnamese food truck on the east coast. Based on the name, nobody would blame you for thinking Tito’s was a Mexican joint. Tito met his wife, Le, on a trip to Vietnam. Soon after she moved to the states, they started up that food truck. Every Friday, the truck sat just to the south of the lake in the middle of our office park.
“Yeah... yeah, I’m ok,” I replied. “I think I’m going to have the Bahn Mi today.”
“Good choice my friend,” he said as he turned to the window to place his order.
“You good to cover me?” he asked. “I still haven’t heard from the latest round of job apps.”
“Of course,” I instinctively replied. “Wait, what?”
“You know, it’s only been a week, they don’t always call you right away.”
“Right,” I conceded. Maybe this Will wasn’t as well off as the one I knew.
I motioned to Le to charge me for Will’s lunch.
“Thanks for lunch Maximus,” Will said. “So what’s up?”
“So, last night,” I barely even got that out before he cut me off.
“You were so hammered,” he interjected with a hint of laughter. “And I kicked your ass on the pool table.”
“Yeah,” I shrugged off the irrelevant parts of his story. “Something happened on my way home last night.”
“Aww, did your Lyft driver take advantage of you?” he continued to joke around.
Before I could respond, I allowed that statement to absorb, forcing myself to recognize that even though I walked home last night, his Max didn’t go to the same bar and may have taken a Lyft home.
“Funny, no. I did see something though,” I spurted out.
Again he started talking while I was getting my phone out.
“Ooh something on your phone, this ought to be good,” his face struggled to hold his excitement, like a kid about to bust open a pinata.
“Hold up, it was dark, but you can see it,” I claimed. “Do you see that?”
With a cynical tone he replied, “I’m not sure what I’m looking at Max.”
“It’s a door,” I told him.
“Uhhhh, cool. You... saw... a door. Call the newspapers!!! Oh wait, did you walk up to the wrong house again?” Another statement with a bit of trite laughter.
“No, it was standing, straight up, in the middle of the street.” That entire sentence came out in fragmented segments.
He leaned back and took a big gulp of his Mountain Dew. “You’re not serious. Why would there be a door standing up in the middle of the street?”
“Exactly what I want to know,” I said. “I touched it, I moved my hand all the way across the door jamb, the frame, the handle. It was all there.”
“Ok, did Shannon see it?” he questioned.
“I don’t think anyone else saw it. Shannon laughed it off this morning when I told her.”
“I can see why,” he smirked. “I bet she changed her tune when you showed her this tell-all of a picture right?”
He was laughing so hard he practically choked on a carrot strand from his sandwich.
While looking down at my bahn mi, I tried to formulate a way to get Will to understand this was real.
“I don’t know what was going on,” I explained. “There was nobody else on the street. I was looking everywhere for someone else to be there. Anyone else to help validate and confirm it was real, that I wasn’t seeing things. I went through it.”
“Went through what?”
“The door!” I raised my voice as I was becoming a smidge frustrated.
Le looked over at me. I waved my hand indicating nothing was wrong.
Will was still leaned back in his chair, and was rubbing his temples, clearly trying to understand either what I thought I saw or why I wouldn’t let this story die.
“Let’s say I believe you Max. Big deal, you walked through a door that was standing up in the middle of the street.”
He was trying to play that one straight but couldn’t hold back the laughter as he finished prodding me.
“I get that you don’t want to believe me.” I was staring off toward the lake, my voice probably rolling away with me. I turned back to him. “This morning, things have been different.”
“Different how?” his body language indicated I’d piqued his interest. He leaned in and put both his elbows on the table. His right hand laid on his left biceps as his left hand gently held his chin in place.
“Several things. My bed was moved...” Before I could add anything else, he interrupted yet again.
“Oh, come on!” he jutted as he had clearly tired of my persistence on the matter. “Shannon rearranges shit for a living. Like she’s never moved crap around your house when you’re not home.”
“I thought of that, but this morning, Shan said something about how I couldn’t remember the bed was in that spot for the last several months. I’m telling you, it was up against another wall yesterday morning.”
He shrugged the bed off.
“Ok, what else you got?”
“Lots of other small stuff, like new table cloths and things that were just slightly different from what I remember yesterday morning.”
“If that’s all you’ve got, I’m going to thank you for lunch and go job hunting.” he said.
To that point I had hesitated to bring up something that may upset him, since things here clearly were different.
“Well, you.”
“Me? What do you mean?” he said while gently easing himself back from the table in a more defensive pose.
“For one, the you I know doesn’t really work for a living,” I explained.
Before I could continue he retorted with a sneer, “yeah, well right now, I’m not working for a living.”
“Sorry, no. I mean you have this fantastic life. You travel the world and live what most of us would call ‘the dream life.’ You get pretty much anything you want and you do pretty much anything you want to do.” I could see he was a bit offended. “I’m not trying to be a dick or upset you, but I really don’t remember the last time I paid for your lunch. In fact, last night, you told me you had gotten another raise from your cushy job.”
“Dude, that’s not funny.”
“I’m sorry, I really am.” I tried to change the subject at least a bit to take the focus off of him. “The bar! Where were we last night?” I needed his version of last night.
“We started at On The Drink by your office before you bolted. Then you took off early.”
I shook my head very cautiously while he spoke.
“For me, we were at a bar just down the street from my house, The Booze Explosion. Today, that area is a field.”
“You talking about the little park a couple blocks from your place?”
“Exactly, only last night, the bar was there, it’s where we always meet on Thursdays.”
“You mean met, The Booze Explosion closed about five years ago, shortly after you started working at GiggiFi, you know that. Max, this all sounds like a dream you woke up from and can’t quit talking about.”
In the results below, again, mostly artistic mentions and some legal links about law pertaining to standing in the middle of the road.
I tried again, “waking up and things are different”
I sneered a laugh when I saw a bunch of psychiatric website links pop up. “Sounds about right.”
My favorite was ‘Hypnopomic Hallucinations’, literally the definition of dreams that are wayyyyy to real.
“Maybe?!?” I questioned myself as I gingerly leaned back in my chair.
My brief gaze toward the computer ended as I spoke louder than I should have, “ooh, parallel universe”!
I lunged forward so chaotically, I nearly kicked the chair out from under me. My fingers landed on the keyboard and i typed as fast as I could,,,,, “pw5wll4l unig4ter”
Under my chuckle I realized my left hand landed one row above the “asdf” standard and tried again.
“parallel universe”
Naturally plenty of internet space and science-y websites and links, but more importantly the definition courtesy Wikipedia: ‘A parallel universe, also known as a parallel dimension, alternate universe or alternate reality, is a hypothetical self-contained plane of existence, co-existing with one's own. The sum of all potential parallel universes that constitute reality is often called a “multiverse".’
“Hypothetical my ass,” I muttered to myself. It was the first thing that made any sense since I saw the damn door.
I slouched back in the chair and hit play on my GiggiFi phone app. Drowning myself in music couldn’t hurt. Over the next few minutes, while lost in my own mind, I unknowingly began writing things down on the notepad situated in the middle of my desk..
At the turn of the song, I refocused on the piece of paper I held in my hand.
“Affair,” “happy?” “door”, “dream”, “drunk?” were just some of the words in an otherwise undecipherable scattering of ideas.
Underneath everything, I jotted down one final thought, “where is the other me?”
After putting my Jack Torrance influenced piece of paper in my pocket, I set out to uncover anything else I could about my ‘affair.’ I opened my Google Drive folders and did some hunting and pecking. There were several things in there that I didn’t recognize, and many appeared to be related to finances and/or work.
I found my mouse hovering over ‘Lacrosse,’ I’d never played and never really watched, so I opened the folder.
That folder led to two more, ‘Cannons’ and ‘Other’.
I clicked on ‘Other’ and bam, there it was, dozens of photos of Kara in all sorts of skimpy outfits and... yup, some with no outfit at all.
In a quick second, I exited the folder. “Why am I cheating on Shannon?” I asked myself. A subconscious shiver ran up and down my body as the words “cheating on Shannon” escaped my mouth. It was also pretty evident it wasn’t just the other me that had an attraction to Kara. I could not unsee what I just saw.
My phone dinged and interrupted my thoughts, it was a text from Kara. “Quick walk outside?”
After hesitating ever so briefly, and against my better judgment, I sent a thumbs up reply.
Three minutes later, we were outside walking in silence on the trail.
“Did you snap out of it?” she asked, breaking the outrageously stagnant dead air that hung between us.
After our first encounter that morning, I clearly wasn’t going to rationalize my new found life with her first.
“I think so. Think I drank too much last night,” I said.
“Me too,” she replied as she gently touched my forearm.
“I’m,” with a quick pause, “sorry about earlier. You mind if we cool it for the weekend? Family stuff.”
“Well, ok,” she said as she reached behind me and squeezed my ass. “I had pretty big plans for you this weekend though.”
Feeling the blush burn onto my cheeks I somehow managed to say “raincheck for next weekend?”
This parallel universe thing was sounding more convincing by the minute. Thus, my only hope was whether I could figure out what actually happened and how to return to my universe as quickly as I could.
As we returned to the office, she rubbed the side of my face again, “deal. You want to grab lunch later?”
“I’ve actually already got plans with Will,” finally a chance for an honest answer.
“Tell that asshole he owes me child support for last month,” she spit out.
The look on my face had to be priceless. I knew Will and Kara had a thing for six months or so shortly after Kara and I started at GiggiFi, but a kid? That was completely new information.
“Ummm, ok,” was about all I could muster for a reply. At that point I was hoping that the response just meant ‘I’m uncomfortable making that request to my best friend.’
Apparently that was all it took for her to leave me alone and she disappeared without another word.
My phone told me it was 11 a.m. so I grabbed another cup of tea and returned to my office.
Greg and Daunte walked by on their way back to their desks. Greg popped his head in, “Max, no bike today?”
Many Fridays, I chose to ride my bike halfway to the office. I’d drive about halfway, park the Jeep in a ‘park ‘n ride’ lot, then hop on my navy blue Bianchi road bike.
“No, too preoccupied to ride today.”
“I hear ya chief, if you’ve got time this afternoon, can we talk?”
“Sure, how’s two work?”
“Done,” he said as he turned and walked out.
I got up and closed the door again, then I reached in the bottom drawer of my desk to pull out my personnel files. I grabbed his file from the front of the drawer, “Greg Flipsch.” There was a small purple tab stuck inside Greg’s file.
I laid the file out on my desk and opened to the tab.
It was a short note about disciplining Greg over improper communication with a label rep. Apparently he’d taken a female rep out for dinner and made a bit of a fool of himself personally and professionally. There were a couple handwritten notes on the back page about him and Teryl knocking heads.
My phone beeped again notifying me of a new text.
“i’m early, 11:30?” from Will.
It was 11:25 already, and Tito’s Food Truck was in the park today. I replied back “ok” and left to join him.
SEVEN
The short walk to Tito’s gave me just enough time to remember a particular moment in time where a relationship with Kara nearly became a reality.
It was a few weeks after we’d started working at GiggiFi. Our founders had thrown a big party at a clubhouse located in the midst of the wealthy subdivision one of them lived in.
Shannon was on a business trip that week, so I went solo.
The party started off as a celebration for the first major upgrade to the company servers. That upgrade opened up the possibilities for us to fully develop our app.
It didn’t take long for the booze from the open bar to start flowing.
Around 11pm, I found a secluded spot to check my phone messages. I ran straight into Kara as I rounded the corner, spilling both our drinks on the tile floor.
Once we recomposed ourselves from laughter, the conversation moved to how much we were enjoying the party and the job.
I offered to get her a refill as I retrieved one for myself. Upon my return to the corner of our collision, I found she had migrated to another area of the clubhouse.
Over the next ten minutes, I continued to hunt for her to hand over the drink that I’d retrieved for her. Of course the longer it took to find her, the emptier her glass became as I drank from each of the two glasses that had been weighing my hands down.
Eventually, I found her near the bar on the basement level of the clubhouse. She was sitting at a felt covered table, staring out the basement doors at the putting green that sat just a few yards from the tee for hole number one on the adjoining golf course.
I sat two empty glasses on the table in front of her and said something about how she must have been hiding from me. Shannon surely would have called it flirting.
She giggled and asked where her drink was.
I laughed and told her I drank it as “my fuel to find her and continue our discussion.”
Thinking I could get us both yet another refill from the bar on that floor, I turned around to find the bar locked up for the evening with a sign that said ‘after 11pm, all alcohol can only be purchased upstairs.’
“Well damn,” I said and turned around to say something funny about the situation.
Before I could get a single word out, our drunken bodies collided again as she had risen from her seat.
“I’m so sorry again,” I said while laughing.
I laughed even harder to her “at least this time no alcohol abuse occurred” response.
With no notice, she planted a kiss on my cheek and began to gently rub my arm.
I stepped back to get my bearings and make sure whatever that was, it didn’t go any further.
“You see that colony of fake trees in the opposite corner?” she asked.
Before I could reply, she continued, “if you weren’t married, I’d be pulling you back there to have my way with you.”
“Oh Kara,” I stammered. “Um, wow. That’s the alcohol talking. I love Shannon, and wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize my family.”
“I know,” she plopped back down onto the chair. “You’re amazing Max. Shannon is so lucky to have you.”
“I think we both should call it a night, can I get you a Lyft?” I asked her.
“No, I’ll get one after I use the ladies’ room.”
We were back to laughing by the time we returned upstairs.
My Lyft arrived right on time, and I told her I’d see her on Monday.
We never spoke of the incident again, and there was no reason to ever tell Shannon as nothing happened.
I stood a few feet from the side of Tito’s food truck lost in a moment considering what might have happened if I had reacted to her kiss differently all those years ago.
The call of my name, “Maximus!” broke me from the light spell I was under.
EIGHT
Will was one of two people that called me by my full first name, the other being my mother. He was also my best friend. We met at a concert after-party many years prior. At that time, we found out we lived just a few blocks from each other. Naturally we began hanging out at the Booze Explosion. Will would eventually be the best man at my wedding to Shannon. He was also the only person besides Shannon that I could completely open up with.
He looked like a golfer that day. He was wearing a bright blue polo shirt with khaki pants and a comfy pair of tennis shoes. The only thing he was missing was a Herringbone cap.
Will spent a lot of time on his hair. It was one of his focal points. He was a master with the hair gel and frankly, combining that with his rugged jawline and piercing blue eyes, it wasn’t surprising why he was rarely without a female friend.
“You okay?” he asked, clearly noticing that I was lost in thought as I approached the food truck.
Tito’s was the best Vietnamese food truck on the east coast. Based on the name, nobody would blame you for thinking Tito’s was a Mexican joint. Tito met his wife, Le, on a trip to Vietnam. Soon after she moved to the states, they started up that food truck. Every Friday, the truck sat just to the south of the lake in the middle of our office park.
“Yeah... yeah, I’m ok,” I replied. “I think I’m going to have the Bahn Mi today.”
“Good choice my friend,” he said as he turned to the window to place his order.
“You good to cover me?” he asked. “I still haven’t heard from the latest round of job apps.”
“Of course,” I instinctively replied. “Wait, what?”
“You know, it’s only been a week, they don’t always call you right away.”
“Right,” I conceded. Maybe this Will wasn’t as well off as the one I knew.
I motioned to Le to charge me for Will’s lunch.
“Thanks for lunch Maximus,” Will said. “So what’s up?”
“So, last night,” I barely even got that out before he cut me off.
“You were so hammered,” he interjected with a hint of laughter. “And I kicked your ass on the pool table.”
“Yeah,” I shrugged off the irrelevant parts of his story. “Something happened on my way home last night.”
“Aww, did your Lyft driver take advantage of you?” he continued to joke around.
Before I could respond, I allowed that statement to absorb, forcing myself to recognize that even though I walked home last night, his Max didn’t go to the same bar and may have taken a Lyft home.
“Funny, no. I did see something though,” I spurted out.
Again he started talking while I was getting my phone out.
“Ooh something on your phone, this ought to be good,” his face struggled to hold his excitement, like a kid about to bust open a pinata.
“Hold up, it was dark, but you can see it,” I claimed. “Do you see that?”
With a cynical tone he replied, “I’m not sure what I’m looking at Max.”
“It’s a door,” I told him.
“Uhhhh, cool. You... saw... a door. Call the newspapers!!! Oh wait, did you walk up to the wrong house again?” Another statement with a bit of trite laughter.
“No, it was standing, straight up, in the middle of the street.” That entire sentence came out in fragmented segments.
He leaned back and took a big gulp of his Mountain Dew. “You’re not serious. Why would there be a door standing up in the middle of the street?”
“Exactly what I want to know,” I said. “I touched it, I moved my hand all the way across the door jamb, the frame, the handle. It was all there.”
“Ok, did Shannon see it?” he questioned.
“I don’t think anyone else saw it. Shannon laughed it off this morning when I told her.”
“I can see why,” he smirked. “I bet she changed her tune when you showed her this tell-all of a picture right?”
He was laughing so hard he practically choked on a carrot strand from his sandwich.
While looking down at my bahn mi, I tried to formulate a way to get Will to understand this was real.
“I don’t know what was going on,” I explained. “There was nobody else on the street. I was looking everywhere for someone else to be there. Anyone else to help validate and confirm it was real, that I wasn’t seeing things. I went through it.”
“Went through what?”
“The door!” I raised my voice as I was becoming a smidge frustrated.
Le looked over at me. I waved my hand indicating nothing was wrong.
Will was still leaned back in his chair, and was rubbing his temples, clearly trying to understand either what I thought I saw or why I wouldn’t let this story die.
“Let’s say I believe you Max. Big deal, you walked through a door that was standing up in the middle of the street.”
He was trying to play that one straight but couldn’t hold back the laughter as he finished prodding me.
“I get that you don’t want to believe me.” I was staring off toward the lake, my voice probably rolling away with me. I turned back to him. “This morning, things have been different.”
“Different how?” his body language indicated I’d piqued his interest. He leaned in and put both his elbows on the table. His right hand laid on his left biceps as his left hand gently held his chin in place.
“Several things. My bed was moved...” Before I could add anything else, he interrupted yet again.
“Oh, come on!” he jutted as he had clearly tired of my persistence on the matter. “Shannon rearranges shit for a living. Like she’s never moved crap around your house when you’re not home.”
“I thought of that, but this morning, Shan said something about how I couldn’t remember the bed was in that spot for the last several months. I’m telling you, it was up against another wall yesterday morning.”
He shrugged the bed off.
“Ok, what else you got?”
“Lots of other small stuff, like new table cloths and things that were just slightly different from what I remember yesterday morning.”
“If that’s all you’ve got, I’m going to thank you for lunch and go job hunting.” he said.
To that point I had hesitated to bring up something that may upset him, since things here clearly were different.
“Well, you.”
“Me? What do you mean?” he said while gently easing himself back from the table in a more defensive pose.
“For one, the you I know doesn’t really work for a living,” I explained.
Before I could continue he retorted with a sneer, “yeah, well right now, I’m not working for a living.”
“Sorry, no. I mean you have this fantastic life. You travel the world and live what most of us would call ‘the dream life.’ You get pretty much anything you want and you do pretty much anything you want to do.” I could see he was a bit offended. “I’m not trying to be a dick or upset you, but I really don’t remember the last time I paid for your lunch. In fact, last night, you told me you had gotten another raise from your cushy job.”
“Dude, that’s not funny.”
“I’m sorry, I really am.” I tried to change the subject at least a bit to take the focus off of him. “The bar! Where were we last night?” I needed his version of last night.
“We started at On The Drink by your office before you bolted. Then you took off early.”
I shook my head very cautiously while he spoke.
“For me, we were at a bar just down the street from my house, The Booze Explosion. Today, that area is a field.”
“You talking about the little park a couple blocks from your place?”
“Exactly, only last night, the bar was there, it’s where we always meet on Thursdays.”
“You mean met, The Booze Explosion closed about five years ago, shortly after you started working at GiggiFi, you know that. Max, this all sounds like a dream you woke up from and can’t quit talking about.”
