Doorway of their Dreams

Kelsey took the last sip of her sleepy time tea and placed her mug in the sink. She padded through the kitchen, flipping off the light switch and letting a pale blue glow from the moon remain in her tread. She gripped the stair rail and felt the smooth cool wood with each step up and into her bedroom.

Tonight would be the first night, since getting married, that she would sleep alone. Raymond was away at a work convention in New Orleans and she would need to get used to being alone for nearly a week. She prepared though and decided to try something new.

“I know it sounds silly,” Kelsey said, “but just try it out. I mean… worst case scenario we get a good night’s sleep thinking about each other, but best-case scenario…”

Kelsey held her tone until Raymond finished, “we see each other in our dreams. Okay, okay, I’ll give it a try. Read the instructions again.”

Kelsey repeated the five-step easy guide from Lucid Dreaming for Nincompoops.

She read them again that night before she closed her eyes and took seven deep breaths, the lemon-fresh scent of her sheets tickling her nostrils. She felt the cool silky sheets beneath her bare body. She tasted remnants of mint toothpaste on her teeth. She listened to the breeze outside the window.

She imagined opening her eyes, stepping up and out of her own body, and placing her bare feet on the carpet. She let the fibers press into the sole of her feet as she stood and walked toward the gold gilded mirror Raymond’s grandmother gifted them.

She had no image in the mirror, but she felt her favorite sunflower sundress close in against her breasts and side. Kelsey pressed her hand against the glass, it stuck to her palm like static cling, and was warm as a steaming bath. She pushed her way through and found herself in a small, square, room. The glass behind her and a doorway in front. She wrapped her hand around the doorknob and pushed it open to bright midday light of an abandoned New Orleans.

“Hey,” someone took hold of her hand, “it looks like it worked. I think. Are you my wife?”

“I think... okay… what’s your passcode?”

“Ship’s Voyage,” said Raymond.

“Hand of Advice,” said Kelsey.

“Got it?”

Kelsey nodded; her auburn curls bouncing around her ears.

“Let me show you where we went today; the restaurant served the best red beans and rice. No joke, babe.”

Raymond walked her through his evening. He showed Kelsey the conference center, the restaurant, a few sights, and they ended their time in Raymond’s suite having rigorous, wall-shaking, orgasm-belching, sex.

“It’s a shame you couldn’t taste the food,” Raymond held Kelsey’s hand as they walked back to the doorway.

“It was like tasting the television static version of a flavor.” As she spoke, Kelsey saw movement between two creole townhouses.

Raymond followed her gaze, “What is it, babe?”

“I’m sure it was nothing. It feels a bit creepy without people.”

“I liked having the place to just us.”

The couple kissed before Kelsey stepped through. The room had grown; when she first entered it was a tight fit, but it could easily fit two of her now. She pushed; the warm gelatin of the mirror caking her fingers and stretching against her. As her face began to sink into the surface of the mirror she turned to look back at the fantastic reality and saw someone facing her, a woman, a blonde… then she was in her bedroom.

She sat on the bedside and looked at the clock; 3am on the dot. She leaned backward over her physical body, closing her eyes and merging body to soul.

Kelsey’s phone blared at 7am; she could barely wipe the crust from her eyelashes as she fumbled to pick it up and answer.

“Babe, that was so cool! You were so right. Oh man, babe, the dream sex. I woke up soaked. You gave me an orgasm from 1,746 miles away!”

“Raymond,” Kelsey tried interrupting, her voice building in hysterics, “Raymond, Raymond.”

“Oh! Yeah, sorry, ‘Hand of Advice.’ Did I get it right? Was it real?”

“Ship’s Voyage,” Kelsey whispered.

“FUCK YEAH BABE!”

“Raymond,” Kelsey said, “I saw a woman in the space between our dreams.”

“What do you mean, babe?”

“You know, that little room with the door, between your dream and mine?”

“Babe, I just woke up and walked out of the hotel room. Who did you see?”

“It was fast; I’m not sure. She was blonde.”

“You were probably starting to wake up a little; maybe losing the lucidity? Or is there someone you were thinking about?”

Kelsey finished her phone call and hung up. She felt remarkably well rested despite feeling like she had spent an entire evening with Raymond.

The next night they met again; the room within the mirror had grown just a little bit more. The couple met on Bourbon Street. They talked, they fucked, and they walked the streets into barren the city. A world just for them.

Kelsey saw something in an office window. A shadow rushing left, then right.

“What is it,” Raymond asked when Kelsey stopped.

“That building, across the street, something in there is moving.”

“You’re just seeing things, let’s keep going. The museum I went to is just up the street,” Raymond took her by the hand, but she shook it away.

“I’m sure there was something,” Kelsey crossed the street and peered inside the dark windows.

In the rear of the building Kelsey could see a dark spot bobbing ever so slightly in one direction or another; it twisted her vision around like a magic eye poster. It was mesmerizing. She looked at Raymond, still across the street, and looked back into the window. The dark spot started to grow and then burst with speed. It changed shape as fast as it did trajectory until it became a blonde woman barreling toward her.

The blonde opened her mouth with an icy hoarse scream and burst into a cloud of purple smoke as she hit the glass.

Kelsey screamed and fell back.

“What? What was it?”

Raymond ran into the street to help Kelsey; he hooked his hands under arms to hoist her up and she pressed into the pavement, pushing them both down to the ground.

“There was a woman. The same one I saw last night.”

“I didn’t see anything, just you, looking into the glass.”

“Maybe we should call it a night?”

They walked to the doorway and said goodnight. She opened the door to find that the room was indeed growing lengthwise into a short hallway. Kelsey dragged her nails down the wood-paneled hallway to the mirror and pushed her way out of the wet quicksand until she was pulled back into reality.

Kelsey spent the next day thinking about the blonde woman. She had been startled, but the woman didn’t scare her. She felt the woman was in pain, needed help.

“Babe, I can’t just look for ‘a blonde woman.’ I’m going to need more description.”

“Her features were fuzzy. Maybe I’ll get a better look tonight.”

“You think you’ll see her again?”

That night they met again. Raymond told her about the guest speaker they had at the event and Kelsey nodded with disinterest. She stared through each window in each building they passed.

“Kels,” Raymond stopped walking, “Babe?”

Kelsey walked ten more steps before she snapped to attention, “sorry, this is so weird and cool, but also kind of creepy. I’m letting it get under my skin, I guess.”

As she spoke she saw, haphazardly covered in clear tape on a telephone pole, a missing person’s poster featuring the blonde woman. She pushed Raymond gently to the side.

Have you seen Astral Ridge?

“That’s her!” Kelsey whirled Raymond around to point at the poster.

“What’s her?”

“On the poster,” Kelsey pointed.

“Babe, I just see a telephone pole.”

“It’s says, ‘Have you seen Astral Ridge?’ and it has a picture of her. You have to be seeing it! It’s right there!”

Raymond began to repeat that he could only see a pole, but Kelsey wasn’t listening. She noticed more posters pressed against the walls of the buildings. A newspaper vendor featured papers with the headline, Have you seen Astral Ridge? She looked up to see a billboard declaring Have you seen Astral Ridge?

“She’s giving me clues,” Kelsey said, “I must be like that medium on that show. Like, I’m getting a second sight from shared lucid dreaming.”

“I don’t know babe,” Raymond said, “this really is starting to give me the creeps. I think we should call it and be done. It’s getting weird.”

“But we have a name now and I saw her face clearly! What if there is a missing woman out there that needs our help?”

“Then you have what you need! Let’s call tomorrow. We can have some regular old phone sex and then give ourselves a regular night sleep.”

The two walked back to the doorway and Kelsey kissed her husband before entering a now extra-long hallway with an ornate red and gold carpet runner stretching nearly triple what it had been the night before.

“I’m not saying you need to go door to door or anything, just ask around about the name Astral Ridge or keep an eye out for missing posters or something.”

“Fine, tell me what she looked like again,” Raymond said on the other end of the phone.

“She had blonde hair, platinum, wavy, to her shoulders. Long lashes, icy blue eyes. Pouty lips. She was really pretty, but I probably shouldn’t be asking you to look for pretty girls.”

“I need something defining, babe, your descriptions are too general. Did she have a scar or an eye patch? Tattoos?”

“No, she was just really pretty.”

“I’ll do what I can, babe, I mean it. Have a good night, sleep well, and I will see you tomorrow.”

That night Kelsey had trouble falling asleep. She couldn’t stop thinking about the icy-eyed blonde, Astral Ridge, and before she knew it she had taken seven deep breaths, the lemon fresh scent of her bedding fading. The silky sheets beneath her bare skin moist and warm from her sweat. She tasted blood from scrubbing just a little too hard on her teeth. She heard a crack of thunder outside the window.

She found herself standing just above her own body, with her back to the mirror, and she slowly stepped backward into the mirror world, letting the fuzzy warmth envelope her.

She walked the ever-extending hallway, footsteps slightly echoing, until she came to the door. She held the handle in her palm and hesitated. Where would the doorway take her without Raymond on the other side?

Kelsey opened the door to find nothing. Not even nothing, she had no words to describe what she was witnessing. It was neither nothing, but also exactly nothing. It was both a void and a lack of a void. An eternity passed in seconds while blood trickled from Kelsey’s nose. She slammed the door shut and rubbed her eyes.

Tears streamed down her grimaced face as she turned to head back to the mirror she had emerged from, but it was gone. The hallway had extended while she had been staring into the eternal conglomerate of nightmares behind the door.

Kelsey began to jog down the hallway, but she didn’t feel like she was making any progress. She could finally see the mirror, but it wouldn’t get any closer. She picked up her pace, but the faster she ran, the further the mirror appeared to go.

Kelsey stopped, hand against the wall, to catch her breath. Her footsteps echoed quieter and quieter down the hallway. Then, the footsteps sped up, getting louder and faster.

Kelsey turned her head to see Astral Ridge running down the hallway toward her. Baring her teeth and pumping her arms, the blonde charged with the power of a bullet train. Her icy blue eyes burst with jagged lightning red veins.

“Astral,” Kelsey said, “I want to help you!”

Astral’s face bulged with hatred as she continued to increase her speed. “YOU CAN’T HAVE HIM,” she screamed with a hoarse voice of burnt and melting cheese.

Kelsey ran. She ran as far and as fast as she could, watching the mirror get further away as Astral closed in on her. Her vision blurred, the floor warped and bent as hallways began to open and extend in every direction, doors emerging and multiplying from cracks in the wall. Astral continued to bear down on Kelsey.

Kelsey closed her eyes and she imagined Raymond. “Please,” she begged, brushing the filmy tear-soaked foam from her mouth, “I just want to see my husband.” Blood trickled down her face as she cracked her forehead on a hard glass surface. Kelsey’s world twisted and spun and she let herself fade and melt into the pool of existence within the mirror’s surface.

Kelsey woke to the sound of the front door opening. She tossed on her robe and slippers and paddled down the stairs. Raymond was lifting his suitcase onto the bench in the doorway.

“Hey babe, are you just waking up?”

“Oh, yeah, I had some trouble getting to sleep last night.”

“It’s 2pm babe, you must’ve had an extra rough night. Technically, last night was our first night apart,” Raymond laughed at his own joke.

“Oh, hey, babe, speaking of: I did what you asked and I was thinking about the blonde. I know this is going to sound dumb, but when we were at the Museum of Witchcraft and Occult I saw this… well, take a look,” Raymond pulled out his phone and shuffled through some photos. He stopped at a picture of himself and his boss. They stood with a platinum blonde woman with icy blue eyes between them.

“What do you think, is it her? It’s just a wax statue.”

Kelsey scrunched up her nose and handed the phone back to Raymond, “no, that’s not her. You were right though; I think I just wasn’t very good at lucid dreaming. I think I prefer the real thing.” Kelsey pulled Raymond into a kiss.

“Ah, babe,” Raymond said as she pulled him into the bedroom. “It’s just, ever since we went to the museum I kept thinking about that statue. It kind of got subliminally under my skin, you know?”

“Wax statues are always creepy,” Kelsey said, pulling Raymond’s shirt off and kissing his neck.

“What happened to the mirror?”

“Clumsy me,” Kelsey whispered in his ear, “I knocked it over and it shattered. I didn’t like it much anyway.”

“Oh, well, hey, before we forget,” Raymond pinned Kelsey’s arms to her side and looked her in the eyes, “Hand of Advice.”

“What’s that?” Kelsey asked.

The End