The impossible persisted.
Leo pushed the door shut. The world snapped back to drab grays and the smell of mildew.
He opened it again. A luminous, primeval forest greeted him with a silent, breathtaking invitation.
Shut. Grime.
Open. Glory.
Shut. Open. Shut. Open.
It was like flicking a switch between two entirely different channels of existence. One was a grainy, black-and-white public access show about suffering. The other was an IMAX nature documentary shot on a planet with a budget the size of a galaxy. Each time he opened the door, the forest was there, patient and real. The breeze was real. The soft light was real. And each time he closed it, the drip… drop… drip of his faucet returned, a steadfast metronome counting out the beats of his miserable life.
The last time he shut the door, he locked it. A flimsy, pathetic gesture, but it felt necessary. As if the magical forest might get bored of waiting and decide to spill out into his apartment. He imagined giant, glowing mushrooms sprouting from his cracked linoleum and jade-carapaced critters skittering under his lumpy mattress. The thought was both terrifying and hysterically funny.
He stumbled back to his mattress, his mind a scrambled mess of awe and exhaustion. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a bone-deep weariness that went far beyond his double shift. One part of his brain was screaming that he should be planning, exploring, doing something. This was the kind of thing that happened in books, in movies! It was the start of an adventure. A new destiny!
The other part of his brain, the part that had been in charge for twenty-two years, the part responsible for survival, just wanted to sleep.
"This is insane," he whispered into his pillow. He turned onto his back, staring at the familiar water stains on the ceiling. They seemed different now, less like a map of a miserable country and more like pale, pathetic imitations of the grand, silver-barked trees.
He needed to process this, but his brain had run out of processing power. It was after 2 a.m. His alarm was set for 5:30. That was three hours of potential sleep before he had to get up, pull on his steel-toed boots, and head back to the soul-crushing drone of the warehouse.
"Tomorrow," he finally mumbled, a strange kind of surrender settling over him. "Tomorrow it'll be gone. I'm overtired. I'll open the door in the morning and it'll just be the bathroom. It has to be. Things will go back to normal."
He clung to that thought like a life raft. Normalcy, which only yesterday had been his prison, was now a comforting, desirable destination. He closed his eyes, forcing himself to think about the familiar routine: the screech of his alarm, the taste of stale instant coffee, the cold morning air, the twenty-minute walk to the bus stop. Grounding thoughts. Real thoughts.
He eventually fell into a shallow, dreamless sleep, his last conscious thought a curse that he still had to get up for work.
The alarm was a digital scream in the darkness, pulling Leo from the depths with brutal efficiency. For a blissful second, he forgot. He was just a guy who was late for work, tired and sore. He slammed his hand down on his phone, silencing the noise.
Then, memory crashed over him. The forest. The glowing plants. The jade beetle.
His head whipped towards the bathroom door. It was closed, just as he'd left it. A plain, peeling, white door in the pre-dawn gloom. For a moment, he felt a wave of relief so intense it almost buckled his knees. It was a dream. A vivid, unforgettable stress-dream.
He stood up, his back cracking a protest. His feet were clean. There was no moss. Of course there wasn't. He must have washed them last night on autopilot before collapsing.
With a newfound sense of stability, he began his morning ritual. He pulled on his work clothes—worn jeans with a patch on the knee and a faded, gray company t-shirt that said 'Global Fulfillment Logistics' over the pocket. He stuffed his cracked phone and his twelve dollars—now his lunch money—into his pocket.
Then, he went to use the bathroom.
He reached for the doorknob, his heart suddenly picking up its pace. It was just a dream. It was just a dream. He chanted the words silently, fiercely.
He turned the knob and pulled.
The forest was there.
Morning had arrived in the other world, too. The light spilling through the doorway was brighter, whiter. The deep indigo sky had shifted to a soft, pearlescent pink. New sounds drifted out—the gentle cooing of unseen birds and a distant, echoing call that was half-chime, half-roar.
Leo stared, mouth agape, for a full ten seconds. His carefully constructed wall of normalcy crumbled into dust.
"Son of a—" He bit off the curse and slammed the door shut with more force than necessary. The building seemed to shudder.
He stood frozen, his bladder screaming at him. There was a problem. A very immediate, logistical problem. His toilet was currently located on another planet.
He opened the door a crack. Yes, definitely a Narnia-level magical forest. He closed it. He looked around his tiny apartment in desperation. The sink? No. That was for dishes and brushing teeth. He wasn't an animal.
With a groan of utter defeat, he grabbed an empty instant ramen cup from the trash, his face a mask of shame. He took care of his business with as much dignity as a man in his situation could muster—which was to say, none at all. He quickly emptied the contents down the kitchen sink, running the water for a full minute afterwards.
"This is not a long-term solution," he said to the chipped bluebird bowl.
He didn't have time for this. He had to be at the bus stop in ten minutes. Work didn't care about magical doors or bladder-related crises. Work only cared if you clocked in on time.
He grabbed his worn-out jacket, jammed his feet into his boots without bothering to loosen the laces, and left, locking his apartment—and his impossible secret—behind him.
The warehouse was a cavernous gray box smelling of cardboard and forklift exhaust. Leo spent the next eight hours in a daze. He lifted, scanned, and stacked. His body moved on autopilot, a finely-tuned machine of repetitive labor. He packed protein powder, ergonomic keyboards, novelty socks, and Japanese candy, his mind a million miles—or a million dimensions—away.
During his thirty-minute lunch break, he sat on a splintered bench in the breakroom and ate a bag of chips and a day-old sandwich he'd made. Twelve dollars had to last. His co-workers, Marco and Sal, were arguing about sports.
"You're crazy if you think they've got a chance against that defense," Marco said, spraying crumbs.
"Defense wins championships, man! Always has!" Sal retorted.
Leo just stared at his sandwich. My bathroom door leads to a magic forest. How could he even begin to insert that into the conversation? He felt completely disconnected, as if he were watching his own life through a thick pane of glass. These mundane problems, which were his entire world yesterday, now felt so… small.
"You okay, Leo? You're quiet today," Sal asked, nudging him.
Leo blinked. "Yeah. Just tired. Long night."
It was the most colossal understatement of his life.