The wind tugged at my coat, but I didn’t hesitate. The door had opened—not with a creak, but a sigh, as if tired of being closed for so long. No one else seemed to notice. Not the jogger on the path. Not the elderly man feeding breadcrumbs to invisible birds. Just me.
I stepped inside.
The hallway smelled of cinnamon and old pages, like a forgotten library dreaming of being remembered. Light trickled in from windows that weren’t there a second ago. The wallpaper shimmered faintly with gold, though it peeled like it remembered a better time.
I didn’t question why my feet moved forward. I just knew I had to keep walking.
The ticking of a clock echoed from somewhere deep within, not frantic but purposeful. I passed a mirror that showed me a version of myself wearing different shoes—braver ones. There were paintings on the walls of places I’d never been but instantly recognized: the hill from my childhood dream, the bridge I sketched once without knowing why, the sky that never appears in real life but always does in longing.
A voice, soft as moth wings, whispered, “You're almost there.”
Almost where? I didn’t ask.
Sometimes, a door doesn’t open to let you out. It opens to invite you in—into something hidden, something waiting, something yours.
I reached the end of the hallway, but there was no grand revelation. Just a window, slightly ajar, and a breeze that smelled like possibility.
And I smiled.
Not because I understood it, but because wonder doesn’t require understanding. It only asks you to follow.
