The Secret Corridor

           “Can you keep a secret?”, came a voice from the closet. Jeremy jumped onto his bed and threw the covers over his head.

           “Go away!” Jeremy shouted. “I don’t know who you are, but I want you to go away!”

           “But Jeremy, don’t you want to know what the secret is? Aren’t you the least bit curious?” the voice replied.

           Jeremy was, in fact, curious as to what the secret was. None of his friends ever wanted to share secrets with him. They called him a blabber-mouth and a stool pigeon. This was the first time someone offered to tell him one willingly. However, Jeremy was terrified as well and chose to keep his mouth shut.

           “Honestly Jeremy, you would be the most popular kid in the school if you knew what I know. Everyone would want to be your friend. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

           Jeremy’s curiosity got the best of him and he peeked his head out slightly from under the covers and looked toward the closet at the foot of his bed.

           “How do you know my name? Who are you anyway?”

           “I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Flannigan. I knew your dad when he was around your age. Why don’t you come closer so you can get a better look at me and I can shake your hand?”

           Jeremy pondered the suggestion for a moment and slowly left the safety of his bed. Before wandering closer to the closet, however, he stopped and asked the mysterious man why he doesn’t just come out of the closet instead.

           “I would my boy, but I’m afraid to come out into the light. I have a medical condition that makes me very sensitive to light. It doesn’t matter if it is sunlight, moonlight, or artificial light, and right now, the full moon is much too bright for me.”

           Jeremy thought that the man’s explanation made sense, and he was an old friend of his dad’s, so he inched his way towards the darkened closet. As he neared the closet door, a small hand appeared and reached out from the shadows. Jeremy hesitantly reached out and took hold of the hand and shook it in greeting.

           “That’s better, isn’t it?” Flannigan asked.

           Jeremy strained his eyes to see through the darkness of the closet, but it was too dense. Flannigan moved forward slightly. When Jeremy finally saw a clearer view of Flannigan, he was surprised. Flannigan was a short man, maybe 3-feet tall and hair the color of fire. He wore grey pants and an emerald green tee-shirt. Certainly not what Jeremy had expected. The man’s appearance set Jeremy’s mind at ease slightly, but he still had questions to ask.

           “Why are you hiding in my closet?”

           Flannigan replied, “As I said, I knew your dad once, but as the years passed, he had forgotten all about me. I met him the same way. Now tell me, lad, are you ready to find out about the secret?”

           “Oh, yes! I think I am ready now Mr. Flannigan.”

           “Please, just call me Flannigan. We are friends now, right? We don’t need this Mister business. Okay, now you have to do as I say if you want to know about the secret. Hold my hand tightly, close your eyes, and walk with me. No peeking now! Promise?”

           “I promise Mister…I mean Flannigan.” Jeremy squeezed his eyes shut and started walking with Flannigan into the closet. He heard Flannigan knock on the back wall three times before they continued. He was startled at how deep the closet seemed to be. “Are we almost there Flannigan? Can I open my eyes yet?”

           “We are almost there my boy. Just a few more steps.”

           Jeremy began to see a light shining through his closed eyelids and he felt a warmth on his skin. A warm breeze whipped gleefully around him as if it wanted to play.

           “You can open your eyes now Jeremy.”, Flannigan offered with joy in his voice.

           Jeremy slowly opened his eyes, but the bright light had temporarily blinded him, so he shaded them with his hand until his pupils had adjusted. As things began to come into focus, Jeremy stood there speechless and amazed. In front of him was a beautiful valley filled with trees and hills as far as the eye could see. Winding through the center of the trees was a sparkling blue river. Animals of all kinds seemed to be gathered in the valley, and they appeared to be living in harmony with one another.

           “This is incredible!” Jeremy exclaimed.

           “That it is, my boy. Welcome to The Majestic Valley. This is a magical land that is unaffected by the torments and hatred of the outside world. In this land, you can do what you want and go wherever you want to go without fear of what may happen.”

           Jeremy looked toward Flannigan for the first time since they left his darkened room. He was amused to see that Flannigan now wore a pair of yellow sunglasses with a frame in the shape of a banana, a purple cap on his head, and his green tee-shirt was now a multi-colored Hawaiian-style shirt. His grey pants had turned into yellow shorts that matched his sunglasses. On his feet, Flannigan wore a pair of paisley-colored flip-flops. Jeremy couldn’t help but laugh at the sight.

           “It’s no wonder you like to stay in the dark if you normally dress like that!” Jeremy stated with a chuckle in his voice.

           “Now, now. I’m just demonstrating that you can do anything you want here. It doesn’t matter what you look like or how talented or smart you are. Everyone here is equal.” Flannigan explained.

           “But the light!”, Jeremy expressed to Flannigan, “I thought that you had to stay out of the light?”

           “In the real world, I do for sure, but that’s because of all of the damage that has been done to the Earth over the years. The intensity of the sun is more extreme now, and the moonlight seems to cause a damaging effect on my skin as well. I break out in spots. I wasn’t always this way. Back when life was more simple and technology didn’t rule the world; when there weren’t so many factories polluting our atmosphere, and when there weren’t as many vehicles on the road, I used to be able to live in your world. When things began to change, I started getting sick. That is when I had someone approach me and show me this magical land. I have been here ever since. That was more than 300 years ago, and I have been trying ever since then to find others who were deserving of this wondrous place, like you, Jeremy. I brought your dad here many years ago, but he chose to stay in the real world. I wasn’t asking him to stay here forever, I just wanted him to know that he had a place to go to when things started getting hard for him. You might not know this, but your father was much like you at your age. He didn’t have many friends, and he wasn’t very good at school. The one thing that kept him from returning, was a girl named Sara. He fell in love with her even before he knew what love was.”

           Jeremy interrupted, “Sara, you say? But, Sara is my mother’s name!”

           “That’s right, lad. Your mother is the reason that your father never returned. Love is a stronger bond than any other force in this Universe, and once I saw that he had found his true love, I stopped trying to get him to come back here. Perhaps…Perhaps, you could convince your father AND your mother to come here one day! What do you think? You could all get away from the stress of the world and find peace in your life again. I should mention as well, that time moves much slower here, so even if ten years in the real world passes, only one year will have passed in The Majestic Valley.”

           Jeremy was excited at the possibility of he and his parents staying in the valley, so he agreed to try and convince them when the time was right.

****

           When Jeremy returned to his room, it was already morning. He heard his mother yelling up the stairs. She was telling him to get out of bed or he would be late for school. Jeremy changed his clothes, rushed downstairs, and gobbled down his breakfast before running out to the school bus. Surprisingly, he wasn’t tired at all even though he hadn’t slept.

           His day at school was the best ever; not because anything special happened, but because he had the thought of The Majestic Valley in his mind all day long. When he returned home that afternoon, his parents immediately noticed a change in his attitude. He was no longer depressed. They saw a smile on Jeremy’s face that they hadn’t seen in quite some time.

           “You seem to be pretty happy today, Jeremy. Did you have a good day at school?”, his mother asked.

           “Not particularly,” Jeremy replied before running up the stairs to his room.

           When dinner was ready, Jeremy’s mother called him down to eat, but there was no reply. She called up a second time, but still no reply. Instead of attempting a third try, she asked Jeremy’s father to go see what he was up to, but when he opened the door to Jeremy’s bedroom, he was nowhere to be found. His father walked back down the stairs and searched outside for his son, but still no sign of him. He started back up the stairs once more, and this time, Jeremy’s mother joined him. When they entered the bedroom, his mother spotted a note laying on the bed, so she picked it up and read it.

           It read, “Come join me in the closet. Love Jeremy.”

           Jeremy’s parents looked at each other with a confused look and his father spoke up.

           “He sure picked a fine time to play hide-and-go-seek!”

           Jeremy’s parents approached the closet and opened the door expecting Jeremy to jump out and try to scare them, but instead, they found another note posted on the back wall saying, “Knock 3 times”.

           They decided to play along with Jeremy’s charade and knocked on the back wall of the closet three times as ordered. The wall suddenly disappeared, and behind it was a dim-lit corridor. That was when Jeremy’s father began to remember his childhood and The Majestic Valley. A smile formed upon his face and he grabbed his wife by the hand.

           “Let’s go!”, he said with enthusiasm. Then he started to pull her by the arm as he picked up the pace. “I know where he is. You need to see this.”, he expressed.

           Moments later they had arrived at the opening to The Majestic Valley and were greeted by Jeremy, who was busy riding around on an ostrich, and a short little man with red hair. He wore a black top hat, a hot pink tank top, and robin’s egg blue shorts. Jeremy’s father recognized him immediately.

           “Flannigan, my old friend. It is so good to see you after so many years!”, Jeremy’s father stated as he shook the little man’s hand with excitement. “I had forgotten about the valley, and about you, but it all came back to me after I entered the closet.”

           “It’s wonderful seeing you as well, James, my dear friend. This must be your blushing bride, Sara.”

           “Yes, it is. I’m sorry. Let me introduce you…Sara, this is Flannigan. He is a very special friend that I met when I was Jeremy’s age. He brought me to this place back then and offered for me to return any time I wanted, but after I met you, I decided not to return.”

           Sara reached out her hand toward Flannigan. “It’s a pleasure to meet your acquaintance, sir.”

           “Please, no sir around here. We aren’t all that formal…despite the top hat I’m wearing. Haha.”, Flannigan retorted. “All of you are welcome here anytime you please, or as long as you wish. I knew that if I couldn’t convince you to return, that Jeremy would stand a much better chance. It takes love for another to coax loved ones into doing things that are out of their comfort zone.”

           Flannigan brought the family on a tour of the valley. Along the way, they witnessed the most incredible creatures from around the world all living together in this one place. Jeremy asked Flannigan if this is where Noah’s Ark ended up after the flood. Flannigan just turned to Jeremy, smiled and winked, but said nothing more.

           They traveled a little further and were greeted by other people of different races from around the planet. Racism, bigotry, and hatred due to religious beliefs or sexual preferences didn’t seem to exist here. Everyone got along. There were no weapons of any kind. It seemed that without the influence of the outside world, people could live together as one with no boundaries. There was a school in the valley that taught life skills that they needed to survive without the use of technology.

           The more they explored The Majestic Valley, the more they became enthralled by what it had to offer. Jeremy and his parents decided that their lives in the outside world were not ones that they wished to stay in any longer. They returned to their home, packed up what belongings they needed. They wrote a letter to whoever came to check on their well-being, stating that they decided to move out into the country, and not to worry about them. After everything was arranged, they returned to their new home in The Majestic Valley and lived there for decades to come.

The End.