The Light of Hidden Things

Ira found his Door the same day he lost his childhood.

It was also the first day of summer and for a brief moment when he woke that morning the world felt like it had gone still. His aunt had gone to the neighbors house, his father was in town, and Ira’s only concern was the litter of kittens that had been born the night before. That was the last day of his childhood, and the day he found his Door.

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Every Door has a Keeper - and while folklore implies that the chosen ones merely stumble onto it in the middle of a tale or the beginning of a Story, there is no trick of fate or circumstantial spell for crossing through worlds. Every Door has a lock and a key, and while it is often perceived as some kind of magical currency ( as most things which are not understood often seem) it is much closer to being a matter of science; a delicate formula with metaphysical weights, where certain truths pulse into being and sing the bodies into a Key.

As a protection for the Worlds and the Doors that guard them, there are the Keepers of these spaces in-between, and it is in this place where a story both ends and begins. Keepers play a consequential role, for not only do they guard their Doors, they also calculate and measure each key, not just as gatekeepers, but as dream watchers and world builders shaping a world of their own.

Every Keeper is the master architect of their world in transit. Some shape their spaces like cave-like structures mired in night, some choose wood cabins with crackling fires, some make it like a forest trail or a spring of fountains, a vast library or an amusement park of tricks. Others prefer the art of dream-craft and listen for whispered wishes learning enough to allow unsuspecting souls to simply walk across a glass mirror or enter a wardrobe door. Perhaps this is why we hear echoes of tales with Doors requiring riddles, or even a promise given or received while other Doors simply open allowing people to tumble through. As such, every Keeper keeps vigil in the walls of their own design, every method lends its own madness, different and divine.

No matter how many times the Keepers change or worlds evolve, the seed from which the trees are planted carry this creed, the bark from which the wood is harvested to make the door carries this creed, the crafting and shaping of the door carries this creed, the creed is always the key:

An impossible want

An irrational need

Something Found and treasured

Something lost and freed.

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Ira’s father was considered an eccentric and a cripple and if born in a different place in a different time, would have been celebrated instead of shunned. He taught Ira about all the plants he knew, told him stories of his life in different cities and the gardens of the rich. His father would limp towards a plant and use his walking stick like a pointer, quizzing Ira on the different plants that heal, which ones grew in dry summer heat, which ones preferred more or less water, how to revive a dying tree. If others considered his father lame, Ira always thought him a giant among men.

When Ira was little his father would say:

“In other places people worry about lightning and storms, and people say that lightning never strikes the same place twice. I tell you that our enemy’s fire will never strike the same place twice, wait for it to settle and run towards it. Do not be afraid when it happens. I’ll come find you there.”

Ira never got to tell his Father that he did as he was told. Ira never got to tell his father his life was saved that day, nor to thank him for the wisdom that saved it.

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The calling to be a Keeper is a rare one, and yet deeply coveted amongst those who are drawn to it. It is after all, the epilogue of an already epic adventure, one that began with an opened Door and a different world.

To know what happened Before, and to understand all that happened After would explain why Ira turned his world into a place of pink ponds, bright summer skies and pear trees. This is where he waited, a place where he was not running to, or running from anything. He would wait, and in the waiting would study all the worlds he did not see, and guide new souls to their Doors.

Time, being somewhat irrelevant here ( until it wasn’t), was measured by the people passing through, each one a story unto itself, each one checked, weighed and measured, their truths written down for other Keepers to study. On the day he passed, the Keeper of Ira’s Door wrote on the ledger next to his fingerprint:

Ira, age 7,

An impossible want: An impossible Peace

An irrational need: Refuge in the wreckage

Something found and treasured: A walking stick

Something lost and freed: A childhood lost and freed