The Portal
Seems fitting that the last story of the year ends up an Indies Unlimited flash fiction challenge story. These are some of my favorite stories to dig through. You never really know what you might find when they announce the prompt every Saturday.
Without giving too much away I just want to say that the story this week seems fitting for the step into the new year. At many times in our lives we face a doorway. The doorway may take us to a good place or it may take us somewhere we never intended to go, but no matter what, the doorway is there before us and we face a choice.
What would your choice be?
The Portal
Photo by K. S. Brooks
The portal appeared and once more, Davis knew he had a choice. He could either turn away from the door and face the looming difficulties in his life, or he could step through the doorway and skip over them.
In the past, he had always braved the adversity, whatever it had been. He truly believed he could not learn from that which he did not experience, even if that entailed suffering. But this – this might be too much to bear. He hesitated before the glimmering door, struggling with the choice…
Davis looked back at the bed. Cindi slept, if it could be called that. Tubes punctured her arms and dove deep through her nostrils. The steady ping of the monitors reminded him that she could go at any time.
The choice like it had been so many times before should have been simple. He could step through the door and reappear in the world at a time when things had settled down. He never had go through times like this if he didn’t want to. Distasteful sensations like this were not part of the mission given to him by The Council.
He glanced back at the door again. The bluish shimmer surrounding it, out of place in the stark white hospital room, belied the simplicity of the thing. It could have been a door to a home for all he knew. But here it sat, in the most unlikely of places.
Davis turned back to his earth wife in the bed before he stepped over to the door. His hand rested above the service panel. It would be so easy to press the button and open it. Step through and this moment would be done, forever.
He pressed the red button. With a flash of light the door blinked and then closed in upon itself. He gave the empty space a last look then resumed his place in the chair at Cindi’s side.
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