The Door

On a rainy Sunday morning in mid March, the streets of Yellow Jacket Lane was more quiet than usual. Monica sat in her living room window staring out at the weather as she sipped her creamy coco and listened to the sounds of the heavy raindrops hit the roof of her house.

 It was week three since the President of the US demanded everyone to remain in their homes for an emergency quarantine from the Corona virus. It was the only headline she’d seen on the TV and heard on radios or saw on her phone, so she decided to turn everything off and concentrate on organizing her old childhood home. Her parents turned the house over to her to care for while they lived in their new luxury retirement home.

Starting with her bedroom, Monica began to pull articles of clothing out while listening to her favorite tunes on her stereo. In the closet, she decided to move the shelf that held her shoes and wash the wall in the back of it. As she ran the warm towel over the paint, she noticed a corner of wall paper coming a loose. She tried to tear the paper off, but the thin layer of cement that covered it collapsed, revealing what looked to be the corner of a door. Monica was taken aback, she had been living in this home for most of her life and had never witnessed this door.

After staring at it for a couple minutes, she decided to pick her curiosity and remove the remainder of the cement that was covering the door.

Once uncovered, she examined the brown door and noticed it had no handle. She decided to push it and the heavy door opened, greeting her face with a thick layer of dust. She coughed and waved the dust away to get a better view of what was on the other side of the door.

To her astonishment it revealed a 70’s style bedroom. There was a retro style bed, dresser, bookshelf and TV. She was digging the vibe of the room and could tell it hadn’t been touched in a long time due to the thick layer of dust that covered it. She admired the contents of the room and realized it belonged to a girl after she came across an old diary. Monica read some pages of the diary and soon discovered it was her older sister Mary whom her parents only mentioned briefly in her memory. They said she left and never came back, they sent search crews everywhere and was not successful at finding her. Talking about the subject was too touchy, so they hardly ever mentioned it and with that Monica hardly ever thought about having an older sister.

Monica sat on the bed and read the last few pages of the diary. Her mouth dropped open when she read that Mary was having futuristic visions. And as Monica read more, she had no choice but to believe her as Mary described Monica’s looks and actions to perfection and explained that Monica would be the one to find and rescue her. Her parents had Monica years after Mary’s disappearance so they never got to meet each other.

“…So sister, if you are reading this now, you are so close to bringing me back home, I just need for you to turn on the TV in my room and change turn to channel 3 where you will see me…”

A shiver ran up Monica’s spine as she read the words that was directed towards her. She threw the diary down and shook her head.

“This can’t be real.” She said aloud to herself. Reaching for her cell phone, she began to call her parents but her phone was dead. She walked back into her closet area and it came back on. “That’s strange.” She quickly dialed her parents number but no one answered.

Monica was creeped out by the message and was hesitant to do what the diary entry told her to do. But after going back and forth in her head, she decided, why not?

Approaching the small TV, she slowly turned the power on and the TV showed static. As her heart raced with anticipation she turned the dial to channel 3. At first there was nothing just a black screen for more than thirty seconds, but then a small dim light begin to surface as a picture slowly revealed a beach with a beautiful sunset and waters crashing over the brown sand. There was no other scene but this, like someone had a camera propped up on it an left.

Just as she was about to turn the TV off feeling ridiculous, she saw someone walking on the side of the beach starting to approach the screen. Monica’s heart raced as she saw a teenage girl with long hair and a swimsuit on walk right up to the screen.

“I knew you’d come.” The young girl who appeared to be her sister Mary said into the screen with a smile. Their parents never showed Monica any pictures of her, they claimed they lost all of their family photos at one point.

“Mary?” Monica asked but already knew in her heart.

“It’s me.” Mary smiled and blushed as she let out a sigh of relief. “It’s been years stuck on this island, waiting for you to come save me.”

“But I don’t understand, if you are older than me then why are you still young?” Monica just couldn’t believe her eyes and felt like this quarantine lock in had done some damage to her brain cells.

“I can’t explain it, it’s like the TV captured me in my present form at the time and kept me in this state since then. All I know is you have to find my body and bring it back here to this room so that I can transform back into my present body.”

“But where is your body? I thought you ran away and disappeared until mom and dad thought you were most likely dead.”

Mary shook her head. “Mom and dad were in denial about the whole thing and never believed me. When I won this TV in a running marathon back in 1975, I was surprised to turn it on and see a channel that showed future scenes of my life. I tried to unplug it, but that didn’t help, it had a mind of it’s own. I tried to show them, but they didn’t see what I saw, they told me the TV was blank and was most likely broken. I told them I saw a vision that I would go away and my sister was the only one who would come find me. I didn’t know your name at the moment all I knew is that you would be. They wasn’t too welcoming to my vision, they thought I’d be their only child since they had a hard time making more babies. They tried to give me counseling at our church but it didn’t help because I saw that vision too and understood then that my parents just didn’t believe me and feared my mental health. They threatened to take away the TV if I didn’t stop with the charades. I didn’t want this portal that connected with you to ruin my chance of getting out, so I quit talking about it. One night, I laid in my bed with this island channel on, I loved the sounds of the ocean and fell asleep to it, when I awakened, I was here, all alone with a small square portal to looking into my bedroom. I saw my body get up from the bed and leave out of the room and I assumed left out of the house as I heard the front door open and close. When mom and dad came looking for me, I tried to get their attention but like I said, this TV was not working for them, so they did not see or hear me calling out. I witnessed them cry together fearing what happened to me, but I couldn’t do nothing but sit here and let it all play out. Over the years, this island has become my home, I’m never hungry, thirsty, or sleepy, just…lonely. I also saw after a few years, mom had become pregnant with you and that’s when they decided to board the room up. It was sad to see my room in complete darkness but I knew one day you would be here talking to me like this, so I had no doubt that I would be there in the present again.”

Monica took a moment to take all the information in. It was bizarre to her but as she sat in the mist of the old bedroom talking to her sister through a television she had no choice but to accept it.

“So what do I have to do?” Monica pulled closer to the TV.

“You have to go find me at a home I’m not sure where. I didn’t get a good look at the name of the place because the vision was brief and cut off. I do know the name of the nurse who found me on the side of a highway had took me in and has taken good care of me over the years. I became mute and had no name or address pinned to me. It’s a few hours from home. Mom and dad never found me because of my lack of identity, plus we didn’t have the resources back then you all have now, so it was somewhat hopeless to them. The name of the nurse if Kelly Griffin, if you do a search on the internet you should be able to look her up and find the hospitals and clinics she has served over the years.”

Monica left the room briefly to look up the info on her computer, it took her no time to find the nurse and the hospital she worked at around her sister’s disappearance. She assured her sister she would find her and began to make plans on how she would be able to go out into the public without being questioned by the authorities due to the quarantine.

It was risky but she came up with a solution and got right on it. She tried to reach out to her parents once more but they still weren’t answering. She swiveled through the back roads using her GPS and was able to avoid any disruption towards her destination. The hospital was located in the thick of some woods off of the back road. She couldn’t believe she made it this far and was pressed to finish this mission for her sister. 

When she made it to the main entrance she hesitated as she saw the security standing by the gate. Her plan was to come as a visitor for Mary but she was unsure of what they called her in this place, she had no identity when she was checked in. So she decided to sneak in instead.

Just as she made her way to an open window on the side of the building, she checked to see if her surroundings was clear before climbing into it. Just as she landed on what seem to be an office floor, she was startled by a loud whistle noise.

“You did it!” She heard a woman’s voice say. “You made it back safely.”

As she looked up she saw a short plump woman wearing nursing scrubs clapping her hands gleefully. She was wearing a name tag that read “Nurse Kelly”. Monica looked around confused as no one else was in the room but them two.

“Made it back?” Monica asked confused standing up, brushing herself off.

“Yes, this is our third annual test of independent living after trauma, and you are showing you can handle the real world at this point. You know your way back in case you feel…a little off.” Nurse Kelly made her way towards Monica smiling and put a hand on her forehead. “Your temperature is normal, did you feel any nausea while on your way here?”

Monica was confused and frightened at the same time. “I’m here to get my sister Mary, she’s been here since she was thirteen and my parents never found her. She told me to come here.”

Nurse Kelly shook her head in disappointment and sighed. “The shot I gave you has worn off evidently, I thought it would last longer.”

“What?” Monica took a seat as her head began to spin. Nurse Kelly quickly passed her a cup of water and urged her to take a small pill. Monica refused and started panicking. “Where’s my sister?”

“Monica please calm down, you have no sister, it’s only been you here since you were 13, your parents are on the way to visit. I want them to know the progress you’ve made so far, I see we still have a ways to go.”

Just then, she saw her parents checking in at a desk, they smiled when they spotted her. Monica ran and embraced them as if she hadn’t seen them in ages. “I tried calling you guys, but you never answered, what is this nurse talking about? I’m here to get Mary!”

They both looked down in disappointment.

“There is no Mary Monica, she was all in your imagination.” Her dad said rubbing her shoulder.

“But I saw her in the TV, she told me to come save her from this place.” Monica sat down in a nearby chair. She gazed around at the small room and realized how familiar everything looked.

“Look Monica, there is no Mary, there has only been you.” Nurse Kelly brought a mirror for Monica to look in. She gasped when she saw a reflection of her face that looked to be an older version of who she believed was her sister Mary.

“No, that’s not me, it’s Mary, this is her body, where am I? I’m twenty two, I’m not this old!”Monica began to cry out of frustration

“I’m sorry dear, every since you brought that TV home that day, you’ve been off every since, and it never came on. You are believing that you are your younger sister that never existed as a way to save yourself for some reason.” Her mom said with sadness in her voice. “We’ve been looking after you this month as you lived in our old home, hoping it would bring you back to us. You were functioning normal until you found the room again, then you ended up right back here, like before. We followed you here to make sure you made it safe.”

“The shot I gave you has been miraculous, you functioned like a normal adult for four weeks. We saw this government restriction process for the corona virus as the perfect time to try it so that you wouldn’t be subject to leave the house no time soon. You followed the rules and the medication worked, but your curiosity picked again and you found your way back into that room and it stirred up your damaging memories.”

Monica shook her head as she processed the information and reluctantly took the small pill to kill the faintness and nausea she felt. What started off as a day of cleaning and organizing lead to a door that revealed an end to her now medicated reality. Monica felt her body relax as the pill kicked in, she then became silent and no longer had nothing to say.

“We’ll keep trying Mr. and Mrs. Scott, thank you for letting us use her for this experiment, we will continue to work on it for lasting results.”

The older couple bobbed their heads in agreement as they looked over at Monica who was slumped in her favorite chair staring ahead at a blank wall picturing herself young and walking on the island.