#FlashFridayFic #39 : The Door

The door sat across the clearing, just beyond the tree, right on the edge of the cliff. The face where the handle should have been laughed at me. “Coward!”

I’d brought my shovel to dig my way around the door. To its left and right. I’d looked for ground to dig through, but there was none. I could walk right up beside the door, to its left or right. The ground ended beside the door. There was nothing beyond the door. There was nowhere to dig too.

Beyond the door, there was nothing. No pathway. No land. No trees. No fields. No city in the clouds. Nothing. Just blue sky, clouds, and in the distance, mountains. Nothing.

The door face laughed at me. “You can’t figure me out, can you?”

“I’ve looked beyond you, you know. There’s nothing.”

“You mean, nothing you can see from this side of me.”

I got up, grabbed my shovel, walked up to the door and stepped to its left. “Watch this, you idiot!” I held the shovel by the handle, and reached to the right side of the door, grabbing the shovels blade. “See! There’s nothing there!”

“You mean, nothing you can see from this side of me.”

The door goaded me. “How is your cold, frozen, uncaring, bitter, lonely heart, human?” I glared at the door. “Do you long for more? Is there more to life? Has there got to be more to life than just your job? You dull, dreary, day-to-day life that never changes. Where there is no color?”

Then the door said the one thing I could not stand. “You’re afraid to open me, aren’t you, coward!”

I’d heard enough. I grabbed the face by its nose, and turned it upside down. I opened that door, and walked through.

And all my dreams were waiting there for me.

309 Words
@LurchMunster

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I wrote this for Rebekah Postupak‘s #FlashFriday, Week 39. Please go read all the entries in this week’s #Flash Friday. They are good reading.

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#FinishThatThought : I Know Where The Missing Socks Go

Hands trembling, I opened the door. Opening the dryer door is not a big deal. People open dryers everyday. I’d opened my dryer more times than I could remember. But this time, things were different.

That night, I’d moved a load of whites from the washer to the dryer, turned it on, and went to bed. I’d planned to get up when her alarm went off, reheat the load, and fold it, so she could have clean socks to wear to work.

But she woke me, about midnight. The dryer was still running. “Dear. Something’s wrong.”

Some strange banging sound was coming from the dryer. And with every bang, there was a turbine jet sound. Like some big flame thrower or something was in the dryer.

I got dressed, and staggered downstairs. She’d quit asking why I got dressed in the middle of the night, in our own house, when no one could see me in my underwear. She’d learned, it’s something I do. I’d have grabbed a gun from the closet, ‘cept we don’t own any guns. Probably because I hate guns. Those things are dangerous, you know! We don’t have any baseball bats either, so I didn’t grab one of those.

Nope. I made like an idiot, and turned on the lights. You could track me through the house. The light in the bedroom turned on. Then the upstairs hall. The downstairs hall. The utility room. I didn’t see any reason to walk around in the dark. We owned three cats. One was long-haired. And I’d stepped on too many soggy hairballs and too much cat puke soaking into the carpet in the dark. I walked with the lights on.

“Well?” her expectant voice carried from the bedroom, through the house.

“I haven’t looked yet!”

I decided I should turn the dryer off before I open it. When I did, the dryer quit running, but I could still hear that jet turbine sound and the occasional loud bang. To be safe, I unplugged it. Didn’t make a difference. The banging and jet engine continued. So, I reached for the door, hands shaking, and pulled it open.

Inside the dryer was the strangest thing I’d ever seen. I remembered an old song about socks and a dryer. “Where do my socks go, in the middle of the night, when I put them in the dryer,” or something like that. Well, that night, I learned where the socks go.

They get eaten by a black hole. I know. ‘Cause there was one in my dryer, carefully sucking up one sock from each pair of socks it came across. The bang happened each time a sock fell in, and the turbine was the small pair of jets of helium that sucker made when it ate each sock.

“Honey! I know where the missing socks went!”

476 Words
@LurchMunster

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I wrote this for week 4 of Alissa Leonard‘s Finish That Thought flash fiction challenge. It’s a fun challenge. Now, go read all the other entries in week 4.

#VisDare 7 : Secret

I heard Leighla’s thoughts greet the new person as she came into the room, “Alice.”

Then I heard Alice, “His name?”

I thought hard as I could, “Taran”.

Alice looked at me, “We need to leave now, Taran. They are coming.”

“Where are we going?”

“Through the looking-glass, where else?” Alice then turned to Lieghla, “You need to go somewhere safe. Now. They are coming.”

Leighla nodded, and quickly left the building. I heard the door lock behind her.

Alice grabbed my hand, as she stepped back into the hallway in the mirror, dragging me after her. I’d never stepped into a mirror before. We walked down the hallway until the room behind us disappeared. We came to a door, with a big lock and key. Alice used both hands to turn the key. The door opened, and she stepped through, dragging me behind her.

148 Words
@LurchMunster

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This piece is the fourth in a continuing story I’m working through for Angela Goff’s Visual Dare. Please read the other entries in this week’s Visual Dare challenge. I like all of them.