The Door

"I can't, I can't, I can't," I moaned, sick with fear, sweat beading on my forehead and running into my eyes.

My stomach was in knots. My fingernails were digging into my palms.

"Yes, you can. If you want to," she replied softly. "Or you can go on with your life the way it has been, with that fear pushed down inside. But you can never forget that it's there, and you know it keeps you from getting what you want. Keeps you from feeling safe, from being strong, from being alive!"

"I know, I know." I admitted, between gasps for air. "But I'm so scared. It feels like I'll die if I open the door."

She chuckled softly. "You won't die, I promise. I'm here, right beside you, and I promise that you won't die. Not now, not here. What will die is that fear that keeps the real you locked up inside. You can't even imagine how wonderful it will be to be free from that fear."

Her arms tightened around me briefly. I turned my attention again to the door.

I stood in a huge dark corridor. The door, actually two massive doors, blocked the end of the corridor rising until they were lost in the pitch-black darkness above.

They seemed a great distance away, but I knew I was as close as I could get, and that was close enough, believe me.

They were blood-red. The hinges were so black that my eyes refused to focus on them.

Somehow I knew that all the things I feared, all the worst, wicked, evil scary things in the world, waited behind that door.

And she was asking me to open the door.

I knew, and I knew that she knew, that I wanted desperately to open the door, and that I was more afraid than I had ever been in my life.

I lost control of my breathing. I was hyperventilating – dizzy – nauseous - gasping for breath.

Her voice was soft but strong, right next to my ear.

"Breathe with me, listen to my breath." Her hand dropped down to rest on my abdomen. I could hear her breath in my ear, loud, strong and measured.

"Breathe – in – out – with me now, just breathe. You can do it."

I didn't know how far away the door was, or how to open it, but I knew it was now or never.

* * *

That moment, I teetered on the edge of indecision. The strength of her breath in my ear, and the warmth of her body holding mine gave me the strength to surrender. That is all it took.

The door began to open.

It opened like the door to a mausoleum in a horror movie. Slowly - with awesome creakings and groanings, almost imperceptibly it cracked open.

And from the widening crack they came. Oozing along the floor, slithering around the edges of the door, flying through the air.

As the crack widened, they thickened the air before me – around me, above me. Spiders, bats and slimy, crawly, slithering shapeless things, and various beasts and grotesquely formed beings without any names.

There was suddenly no space where they were not. My world was filled with things that bled and screamed my name and came at me at a furious pace.

I couldn't catch my breath. I couldn't breathe. From far away there was a sound of a keening shrieking wind, pulsating, louder, rising and falling in pitch.

There was a pressure on my belly that my body resisted, and in resisting pushed the air out until the vacuum was filled by the inrushing air.

Everything was black – and red and horrible colors that I had never seen before. All twisting and turning and moving around in awful ways.

My head felt like it was going to explode. My stomach was on fire. I was burning up. I lurched forward and fell to my knees.

I was totally out of control. My face hit the floor that was wet with my sweat and tears. I gave up. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I was about to die.

And then, somehow, there was another "I" there watching the whole thing.

"I" watched as another I felt the air rushing into my lungs and back out again, yet "I" was not doing the breathing.

"I" could feel the blood coursing through veins and arteries, carrying oxygen to the farthest reach of a body that "I" knew was somehow mine and yet not mine.

"I" knew that we were connected in some way, but it was more like I belonged to the body, and not the other way around.

* * *

I fell over on my side and huddled into a fetal position, muscles straining to become as small as possible.

I heard the stories again, all of them. The fairy tales with witches and monsters, trolls and dragons. The mythologies of giants and ogres and sorceresses. The boogeyman, demons and gremlins were all over me.

The devil with his pitchfork and barbed tail flew toward me, followed by the grim reaper with his skull-like face, bony hands and huge scythe.

And suddenly they were gone.

There was nothing. No up or down, inside or out. I couldn't see or feel anything. The fear gave way to an eternity of waiting - then just being - and then to relief.

I begin to breathe deeply and evenly, gulping in long draughts of sweet, living air. Life rushed through me, into every crevice, every cell.

I unwound and rolled over on my back. I laughed. I chuckled. I giggled. Tears of joy were streaming down my cheeks. It was so good to be alive. I felt fiercely exultant: arrogantly, proudly and strongly alive.

I became aware of the room before I opened my eyes. I could see the room, hear the room and feel the room.

I reached out and touched her. Her hand found mine and brought it to her heart. I opened my eyes and looked into hers.

I suddenly knew, as though I had always know but somehow forgot - knew that the universe was a safe place in which to play, and that there were many powerful people like her - had been people like her – always would be - surrounding me, protecting, guiding me throughout my life.

"Someday, I'd like to be able to do that for someone else" I said.

"You will," she replied with a smile. "That, and much, much more. I promise."

* * * * *

The Door