Good and so good for you.

The Door to There

The first time Randy stepped through the door to the other world it looked just like this world. Except there were no people there. Randy’s house was just the same, there was the same food in the refrigerator, the phone worked, but no one to call. Randy spent the day there, a very nice quiet day.

Later in the week Randy had a day off, so he went through the door for a second time. The other world looked the same as this one, and there were no people. Except the morning was much nicer and sunny, and the slightest breeze stirred the leaves. Randy spent a while in the garden, reading, dozing. Then he walked to town, visited the shops, but there were no clerks to pay. No one to steal from.

Randy went often now through the door to the other world. All of the objects there were just like they had been in this world at the time he left it, so he never wanted for anything. There were no people, so he had absolute tranquility, complete privacy. He went everywhere, went into houses, drove cars, swam and played and hiked and napped, and found himself enjoying that world very much--much more than he enjoyed this world.
. . . .

When Randy stepped through the door for the one hundredth time, the other world still looked like this one but something was happening. Stark clouds raced across the sky and a brisk wind blew the trees all about. A storm was brewing. It was the first storm he'd ever seen there, in fact, the first bad weather of any kind. Randy found it unsettling and was about to return home, when he heard music, piano music. It was something beautiful and morose. Was it Kavovsky’s Prelude in C Flat Minor? Though Randy was uneasy, he decided that he must follow the sound, reach its source. If he was not really alone in this world, he certainly needed to know it.

The wind blew Randy's hair and shirttails around violently as he made his way down Sixth Street to an old house where the music played. The clouds by now were much darker. Hello? Randy called into the house. Inside he could see but little, and the music itself was thick and dark. Randy had to move slowly and deliberately as he made his way through the halls of the mansion--to the music's source. And there, finally, he saw: the music was coming through an open door, but he recognized that kind of door. It was a door that led to yet another world.

Randy stepped through the door into the other world but it did not look like this world, because, as it turns out, it was no world at all, for there was nothing there, nothing to stand on, nothing to hold onto, no way to turn around, no way to step back to the door, nothing there, nothing but the music, and, no, it was not Kavovsky's Prelude in C Flat Minor.
. . .

Randy was not dreaming. He was awake. This is his world. Randy had always imagined it just as he pleased. But today something he himself had not planned had entered into it. How could this happen? Was it a Dream that came into the daydream through that other door? Did it come in much earlier than that stormy day? Was it there hiding, watching, when he first walked to town, when he first sat out in the garden, when he first checked his telephone? When, really, did Randy leave off making his world, and when did the Dream begin making Randy? What was the flaw in his creating that it should all end like this? How could Randy have kept himself safe?
. . .

Randy stepped through the door, and it looked just like his favorite place, and the waves were breaking, the sun was glistening over the ocean, and the others were splashing and calling to him. Come on Randy! The water's not cold!