The Closet

He stood in front of the two doors. It had to be the one on the left, he thought.

It’s now or never, he thought.

He opened the door, took a deep breath, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him. The audience clapped, first for the decision, and then a quieter clap, this time for the outcome.

***

Dave had never really wanted to be famous. And he wasn’t still, really. But he became known, for a short period of time, in a minor way, after this decision. Like a local weatherperson, or the cast member of a defunct reality show. His name was known, and so was his face. 

***

Decisions were difficult for him. He had been indecisive for as long as he could remember. It was funny to some, and outright irritating to others. But it irritated no one more than himself. 

He wasn’t sure where it came from, his lack of ability to just make one decision - a clean, clearcut decision, straightly severed from the other options, no doubt holding on. 

It might have been when he was five, and his parents had him choose a pet cat from the shelter. There was a tabby and black and white cat. Who did he want? His parents asked. 

He looked at both cats one at a time. They were both pretty, and both looked at him with sad, wide eyes.

“That one,” he had said, pointing a tiny hand at the tabby. 

He didn’t give the black and white cat another thought, until a year later, when he went to the same shelter on a field trip. The black and white cat was still there, in its little cage, no longer looking at anyone with its sad, wide eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the cage. 

Or it might have been when his parents had asked him a few months earlier who he wanted to live with after the divorce. He chose his dad and he remembered the way his mom’s face crumpled. 

It was one of those, he thought, that made him realize his decisions could hurt others. But he couldn’t decide which.

***

Dave became known after he entered the left door. He had assumed as much, but once he closed that door, there was no way he could find out.

***

He had decided to apply after a great deal of deliberation. But he had a rare lapse in indecision when the fifth debt collector of the week called. 

To his surprise, he got an audition. 

***

The audition was short, conducted in a speed round. Based on not just the answers, but the tone of the answers, the quickness of the answers, five would be chosen for the season premiere. He sat in a small office, with a two sided mirror. From behind the mirror, a Siri-like voice asked questions.

He figured they were looking for someone who was confident and gave his answers as quick as he could.

Favorite fruit?

Pineapple! (Not true he thought...it was oranges...or maybe cherries?)

Would you rather marry for love or money?

Love! (He wasn’t entirely sure that was true either).

Best movie ever?

Space Jam!

Dream vacation?

Uhhhh Hawaii!

Favorite animal?

Zebra! (Zebra?!)

The speedy questions went on for 30 minutes, then abruptly ended when a timer went off. 

The little voice behind the mirror thanked him for this time and told him he could leave, follow the little arrows toward the parking lot. 

***

He thought a lot about his answers when he lay in bed that night. Why on earth did he say Zebra?

***

I wonder why he said Zebra? a producer asked her co-worker as they reviewed the audition tapes.  

***

Then came a visit from a legal team.

Yes, he said, he understood it all. 

Two doors diverged in a wood and all that right? He said. 

The one you choose will certainly make all the difference! An amiable lawyer said, before adding his signature as witness. 

He found out he was cast two weeks later. 

***

He opened the door. It was completely dark. The air was warm, stuffy. A single lightbulb turned on two feet above the top of his head The walls were brown, and too close. He reached his arms out either side of him and touched both sides.

He was in a closet. 

***

The prize was one hundred million US dollars. Paid via bank transfer, in a suitcase full of bills, in Bitcoin, in diamonds, in art, or in one hundred million items from the Dollar Store. Whatever you wanted.

And all you had to do was pick the right door to win. Fifty-Fifty odds were much better than most bets. 

If you chose the wrong door, you would lose. But in the days leading up to the filming, he did his best not to think about that.

**

He sat in the closet, knees hugged up to his chest.

He had seen the contestants in previous episodes who chose the right door. They all opened out into a large room filled with their loved ones, dollar bills raining from the rafters.

Dave had chosen wrong, he knew that, and he tried not to think of who was waiting for him past the right door.

But as the hours past, it was, of course, all that he could think about.

**

"Our decisions can haunt us," the showrunner said in an interview the following week.

"Critics say this was too far, too far past past episodes, where the wrong door has resulted in a quick...a quick release," the journalist had said. "What do you say to those critics?"

"I say that through life, small moments, where we chose A instead of B, they stay with us. We ruminate. We question. We regret," he said. "And that was what Dave's journey was all about."

***

Dave thought about his decision a lot over the next few days as he waited for it to come. For poisonous gas to seep in from under the door, for a single bullet to come from a hole in the ceiling, for the closet to somehow fill with water.

***

His name was all over the news on the day he finally died. The most controversial death yet, of a controversial game. There was no quick mercy for Dave, like there had been the others. 

Fifty-fifty odds, he said as he slipped out of consciousness, and I chose the goddamn closet.