I woke up in a dark room full of doors. Most of them were in a proper place for doors, in walls and with attached hinges­, ­­­­­looking like they actually went somewhere. Off to a side in a velvet shadow was a pile of loose ones. I stood up, brushing myself off while I looked at the outline of my body in the dust on the floor.

One door led onto a magnificent sunset, across fields of red rock and I when I tried to step through, I came up against the sight like it was a closed window. I chose another and on the other side was a city, dingy and vast. Large shapes clawed their way through the sky and blocked out the red moon when they passed. This place filled me with a perfect fear, and I spent several moments trying to push my way into it, fighting against invisible force.

All of the doors were like that, views onto places that I was not permitted to enter and I knew why none had been locked. Where had I wandered?

“There you are.”

The voice was smooth and careful, precise. The man was my father’s age, watching me with a raised eyebrow.

“I can’t get through.” I told him.

“Of course not.”

“Why?” Even to me that sounded petulant. “Why even let me see but not enter?”

“They’re not for you. You’ll never go to any of these places.”

I was just a boy, but had been born without a few things and over the course of my life, I would lose more. But this statement from a stranger dragged its hand through the center of me and I knew a different sort of heartbreak. One that would be with me always, and not as a memory.

“What am I supposed to do now that I’ve seen them? I want to go there.” I pointed to the door which kept me from the dingy and vast city. It was a terrible place and I wanted to get lost in it, to find wonder in its alleys and violence in its thoroughfares. I wanted the conflict that I knew was there, I wanted a weapon in my palm and the love of a comrade in the space between terrors. Things I had never known to want before.

“Especially there.” I whispered and he hummed a vaguely familiar tune.

“Was that supposed to tell me something?” I asked.

“It’s the Stones. Can’t always get what you want?”

“Ah.” I turned away from him and ran a hand through my hair. “You’re fucking tone deaf.”

“No need to get personal.”

I gestured around. “Hard to get much more personal than this.” I opened the door and looked out across the skyline, my palm against the clear blockage. It was cool on the other side, a good place for a leather jacket.

“Yeah. Well I didn’t ask you to come here.” He said, and crossed his arms.

“Does anybody get to go through?”

“Yes.”

I nodded, but didn’t look at him and when I walked past him on the way out, he smelled of pencil shavings. I don’t remember how I found my way home, but I remember that room and I’ve never needed to remember that pain. It’s here, just below my heart and I hope it never goes away. I know my telling of this thing has been less than adequate, but I would spare you this pain as I feel it and the terrible knowledge that causes it.

And also, I do not want to share it.