What’s Behind Door Number One

[theme music made of pulsars]

[applause sign stuttering like a tired quasar]

-

Welcome back, contestants.

Tonight the cosmos is our sponsor

and the prize is rumor-shaped.

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Pick a door.

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Door One: a staircase that circles upward

until you become the railing.

A light saying yes to everything

and meaning almost.

-

Door Two: a handsome error in a lab coat.

The elevator button is jammed at Lobby.

The scientists ride forever,

knees trembling, calling it gravity,

mistaking the shiver for law.

-

Door Three: Probability in a prom dress,

swearing she’ll call tomorrow.

She does, wrong universe, right time.

-

What lie does the cosmos tell?

That there’s a backstage.

That the camera ever looks away.

That glitter underfoot isn’t the pulverized dead.

That every whisper of static is a message

and the reflections in the safety glass are gods,

ETs waving from a mezzanine of wish.

-

Commercial break.

Entropy in the makeup chair,

powdering her absence,

flirting with the boom mic,

selling Forever as a limited-time offer.

-

Back hot.

The Host tightens his crescent smile

with a wrench you can’t see.

Great Old Ones spin the Big Wheel.

It clacks through symbols no mouth can keep,

lands on a number shaped like never.

Confetti falls upward. Confetti falls downward.

Even air forgets its job.

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Contestant, choose.

You want eternity, the deluxe package:

heated silence, zero endings,

a door that opens into yes.

-

You point at One.

The handle turns.

-

Inside: a smaller stage, brighter,

a smaller Host with three smaller doors,

cue cards blank as mercy.

“Welcome back,” says the echo.

“Tonight your sponsor is the rumor of escape.

Your prize is a key that fits every lock

by changing the shape of the lock.”

-

Somewhere above truth the elevator dings,

movement pretending to be meaning.

We step through, game-faced, brave,

still hoping the next door is the last.

-

[theme music returns, softer]

The cosmos leans in, no script,

and gives the only honest answer it has:

keep playing.

.