Door in the Woods

We follow structure too much in this world. Sometimes we need to let our minds wander. Here is your weekly Creative Prompt. Feel free to share!

I could feel the harsh autumn wind striking my chapped cheeks as I ran through the woods. My cheeks were wet; salty tears stung my face. Feeling like I couldn’t run anymore, I stopped and yet still found the strength to yell at the top of my lungs. And when all the air had escaped from my body, I collapsed onto my knees. Leaves crunched under me as I felt twigs and acorns cut my skin.

I lay there in a ball, curled up like a squirrel ready for winter to come. I don’t know how much time had passed, but I don’t think it was too long as the sun was still barely peering through the thicket of trees. Something made me look up; a force I could not ignore. And there, I saw a door. 

It was framed in ornate dark wooden carvings. The door itself was patriarch purple with a simplistic bronze knob.

The same force that had made me look at it in the first place made me stand up and walk up to it. The closer I got, the bigger it looked.

I did what I think anyone would do in this situation and walked around it. There was nothing but the woods behind it. I faced the front again. I figured the next logical thing to do to a door that wasn’t mine was to knock.

I’m not sure what I was expecting: a fairy, a centaur, a gnome, a giant, to answer the door, but nothing answered the call. But I wasn’t ready to open it either. 

And so I resumed my position on the dry, cold ground, and watched it. My eyes watered as I didn’t want to blink and it to be gone, but when I couldn’t stand it any longer, my eyes shut. When they reopened, the door was still there. The sun was moving, and I could tell it was getting darker. I knew I couldn’t go back. And at this point, my only shelter was going to be inside that door.

A crow landed on top and cawed its cry. I could see his breath in the increasing chilling temperatures. A woodpecker attached itself and began pecking. And for some reason, I felt the need to stop it. As if the door were something to be protected. I stood and shooed it away, only to discover that no damage had come to the wooden frame. And what shocked me even more was that the crow had seemed unbothered by my shooing.

In fact, the crow was looking right at me. Any fear or concern about my current situation had melted. I felt warm in the cool air that surrounded me, as if sitting in a bay window on a winter day wrapped in a blanket and drinking hot tea by the crackle of a fireplace. And I swear, the crow smiled.

I reached out my arm, twisted the knob, and opened the door.

-Written By: Carolyn R. Stiles

Finish the story how you imagine...