The door appeared one morning in a wall that had never contained a door.
It was an ordinary wooden door, painted blue, with a brass handle and a small keyhole. There was no frame around it. The wall simply ended at its edges.
The people who lived in the building tried opening it.
The first man turned the handle and found himself standing in a garden.
There was a tree in the garden, a stone bench, and a path leading towards a house. He recognised the house. It was the one in which he had grown up.
He stepped back.
The door closed.
The second person opened it and saw a city beneath a violet sky. Towers rose above a river, and small lights moved between them. She watched for a while, then closed the door.
The third person opened it and found the room in which he was standing.
He could see himself beside the door.
He raised his hand.
The other man raised his.
He closed the door.
Word spread.
People came from neighbouring streets, then from other towns. They took turns opening the door.
Some found places they had visited.
Some found places they had dreamed of.
Some found places they had never imagined.
A woman opened the door and saw a sea with no horizon.
A child opened it and found a staircase descending through the clouds.
An old man opened it and saw a field in which all the people he had ever loved were walking.
A traveller opened it and found a road that divided into a thousand roads.
He asked which one he should take.
The road divided again.
The authorities arrived.
They measured the door, examined the wall, and questioned the people who had opened it.
They asked whether it was dangerous.
Nobody knew.
They asked whether it could be controlled.
Nobody knew that either.
They asked what lay beyond it.
The people gave different answers.
The authorities decided to close the building.
But when they returned the following morning, the door had moved.
It was now in the wall of the building next door.
A committee was formed.
Its members agreed that the door represented a serious administrative difficulty.
They proposed that it should be classified, regulated, and, if necessary, removed.
One member suggested that every person who wished to use it should first state their intended destination.
Another suggested that destinations should be approved in advance.
A third asked how anyone could approve a destination that had not yet been discovered.
The committee adjourned.
Meanwhile, the door continued to move.
It appeared in a school, a railway station, a hospital, and a disused factory.
It appeared in the wall of a house whose owner had been away for twenty years.
It appeared in a room that had no other exit.
Sometimes it opened onto familiar places.
Sometimes it opened onto places that seemed to be waiting.
Sometimes it opened onto the same room, but with something slightly different.
A chair stood beside the window.
A book lay open on the table.
A stranger was looking out at the street.
People began to wonder whether the door was showing them other places or other versions of their own.
A woman who had never opened the door came to the building where it had first appeared.
She stood before it for a long time.
At last, she turned the handle.
Beyond it was a narrow passage.
At the end of the passage stood another door.
She went through.
Beyond that was a room with a window overlooking a garden.
In the garden stood a child.
The woman recognised herself.
She called out.
The child looked towards her, then ran behind a tree.
The woman went outside.
The garden was empty.
She returned to the room.
The window now overlooked the street.
She closed the door.
By then, people had begun to argue about what the door was.
Some said it was a machine.
Some said it was a place.
Some said it was a test.
Others thought it was a warning.
A few said that it was simply a door, and that people were making too much of it.
But even they began to avoid walking past it alone.
One night, a man arrived carrying a small suitcase.
He had heard that the door opened onto every possibility.
He wanted to find the place where he had made a different choice.
He opened it.
Beyond it was a room in which he was sitting at a table.
The man in the room looked older.
He was holding a letter.
The visitor stepped inside.
The other man looked up.
Neither spoke.
The visitor placed his suitcase on the floor.
He asked whether the letter contained the answer.
The other man looked down at it.
Then he handed it over.
The visitor opened the letter.
It was blank.
He looked up.
The other man was gone.
The room had become a garden.
The suitcase was still beside him.
He picked it up and walked towards the house.
The door had disappeared by morning.
Nobody knew where it had gone.
The committee published its report. It concluded that the phenomenon could not be adequately described, but that further investigation was warranted.
The report was placed in an archive.
Some years later, a clerk searching the archive found a blue door in the wall behind the shelves.
He opened it.
Beyond it was a room full of shelves.
On the nearest shelf lay a copy of the committee's report.
The clerk took it down.
It was unfinished.
The last page contained a question:
What should be done with a door that opens onto every possibility?
He carried the report back to his desk.
There, on the wall behind him, he noticed a small brass handle.
Nobody has established where the door is now.
People still occasionally report seeing it.
A blue door in a wall.
A brass handle.
A keyhole.
Those who have opened it describe what they found.
But they rarely agree.
And there are some who say that they have never seen the door at all.
They are usually the ones who know exactly where they are going.
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