The Room Behind the Door
Tap, tap, tap, tap…
The rhythmic repetition of your footsteps echoes off the freshly polished white tile floor. The sound carries down the empty hallway and echoes back to you, reminding you of how strangely alone you are in this endeavor. There are no passersby roaming the halls. You should know; you’ve only been navigating them for half an hour. There are apparently many rooms, because you have passed many doors, though each door has been closed to keep out prying eyes; eyes such as yours.
Such eyes have seen the contents of rooms, but these rooms were not occupied by people. There were desks and chairs and lamps and other things, but little spoke of more than years of stagnation. A particular room to the right if you looked had desks aligned in a fashion as though to allow for a class taught from books and students to be taught by a teacher. But in this empty shell of a place the teacher was a teacher of naught. Instead where the teacher had stood was a manikin with one hand raised to the blackboard at its back, and a false book held at chest level in the other. The empty class room was strange, indeed, and its purpose in a place such as this would remain to be seen.
The alabaster walls serve to reflect the meager amount of light provided by the sparsely placed ceiling fixtures. These fixtures show their age as their light shines through dirty covers obviously in need of a cleaning with vigor. Along the bases of the walls in this particular hall sunken into the floor are numerous individual lights. Their singular bulbs emit a bright light straight from the ground up, and these lights lead to a single door at the end of this hall. This door was the same as the others. There was nothing special or grand or fantastic or great about it, save for the handle. For the handle, you see, was plated in gold and rather ornate compared to the drab silver handles of the doors rest in the place. It called to your hand and beckoned you forth. It was obvious this was the door you’d spent half an hour looking for. With a turn and a push the door opens and what does it open to, but a room!
Within this lavish room there are chairs and a desk and shelves. A globe stands in the corner while a painting of old hangs and greets your vision proper. To your right a comfy-looking sofa rests against the wall, and the themed color in here was dark mahogany, a stark contrast to the never-ending white in the alabaster halls. The shelves housed books upon books and folders and files. There were cobwebs in the corners, but all in all the room was tidy and well kept, but most importantly, it was occupied. For at the room’s center you would see the desk you’d glanced at before, only now you realize things are not as empty as they seem. Closest to you are two empty seats, both facing the desk, and across from that a large comfy chair, a chair in which he sits. Well, of course you assume it’s a man, but from where you stand it could be a woman or child, perhaps even a monster. Truth be told it could be anything, maybe even a combination of all the extremes. The light in the room plays a trick on the chair opposite the desk, for as it is placed the lights from the lamps cast a particularly dark shadow over the chair’s occupant’s face. There are no details to see, no definition to be found. Instead comes a voice, a voice that resounds. It encompasses the room and leaves you nowhere to hide, but it is kind and familiar. It requests you close the door behind.
”Please, do come in. Close the door; take a seat. Now, let us begin…”
