The Door

He asked me whether I had gone through the door.
I had no answer, after all, we were in the middle of a dense forest, and doors are not quite common elements in these remote places.

Not hearing me say anything, the Laudam asked again whether I had gone through the door.
I wasn’t sure what his question meant, but I hadn’t gone through any doors, so I said no.

He fixed me with a malevolent stare, and then bounded closer to me quick as lightning; he seemed to be made out of wood and earth, like something that had crawled out of the dry roots of an old oak. Tiny butterflies floated around him as though waiting for a single breath of life to come out of his lips.

This was an old being, that much was clear to me. His feet were a strange mix of elder things and animal parts. I thought that maybe one day, a long time ago, the Laudam had been more made of flesh than pulp, but after so many years living in the woods, this transformation seemed almost expected, and almost welcomed.

Once he was satisfied with my scent, he turned and stretched is finger to point at something amazing.
Right there, in the middle of the forest, as if it had been there the whole time, there was a door.

It wasn’t a door like any other, which is saying quite a lot. Aside from the fact that it hadn’t been there a second before, and aside from the fact that it was in the middle of a forest, there was something rather particular about this door. It didn’t seem to lead anywhere.

Standing as it was it didn’t separate a room from a hallway, or a kitchen from a living room, like its cousins, the more normal doors, usually do. It was as though this door separated one side from the other, which was no obstacle at all if one decided to simply walk around the panel.

However, when I tried to point out such an obvious observation, the Laudam made me quiet with a crack from his barked lips, he said to me that such comments were not welcome, and that if I wanted to ever achieve the right, or rather, the privilege of walking through the door, I would have to be in my best behavior.

The wisdom of my lonely nights is not a deep one, but it doesn’t take a wise man to know when to be quiet. So I closed my mouth and waited for the Laudam to walk around me snapping his fingers until he spoke again.

He asked me if I had come looking for the door.
I said no, since that was the simple truth.

He asked me then what was that I was looking for. I told him that I was looking for the sacred place where all questions can be answered, where all mysteries are revealed, the place where all lies can be uncovered.

The Laudam laughed with a terrible and resounding laughter, and his voice echoed through the forest like an explosion of terror, like a hundred drums were suddenly playing a thousand year old melody only to go quiet the next instant, never to play again.

When he finally stopped laughing, he told me I was in fact, looking for the door.
I looked at him bemused and not understanding very well what he had just said. He then explained to me that only those who were looking for the door could talk to the Laudam, and since I was talking to him, even if I didn’t know it, obviously this was the door I was looking for. The logic of the argument revolved upon itself in a manner that I couldn’t quite comprehend, but that I was ready to accept.

I asked him if the door was the sacred place.
His oaken smile was briefly accented; he told me that the door was the place I had been looking for, the place where all the answers await.

He asked me once again if I was looking for the door.
I said yes.

The Laudam walked slowly to a fallen tree and sat down. Once immobile it would be impossible to spot him without the prior knowledge that he was sitting right there. I hesitated for a moment and then asked him about his own question. He told me that only those who sought the door could walk through it. After another apprehensive pause I decided to ask him why would he wonder whether I had already crossed the door. The Laudam looked at me quizzically.

He asked me if I even understood what I was looking for. He told me that walking through the door was not a simple matter, but rather the opposite, it was a magical contract, it was a change of reality, it was a new life. He asked me if I was ready for it.

I told him I didn’t understand what he was saying.

His rage came so quickly I didn’t even notice it. In an instant he was kneeling over me, pushing me against the earth and the mud as if I were an insect. His rough hands were cutting into my chest and the weight of his old body was stopping my breath.
He told me I was an idiot for coming to this remote place, for daring to search for that which I didn’t fully understand, he told me that the best thing I could do was to forget this place completely and never come back.

I told him I was looking for the sacred place, and that these kinds of quests often bring unexpected things. How can a man adventure beyond the known seas and the charted deserts if he required knowledge and comprehension of what he would find at his destination? Did the first men to touch the North Pole, or those who climbed the highest mountains on the earth, fully understand the risks they would find on the path?

The Laudam looked at me curiously and shifted his weight so that I could breathe again. He gave me a fleeting smile and told me that he was what he would call, a risk on the path.

It was then that the Laudam explained to me what the door was. Though the first thing he said was that he was its guardian. Nobody could walk through the door without his approval. The door itself was a rather simple looking panel made of wood from trees that no longer live on the earth, but the most particular thing about the door was not the material it was made of, but rather, the manner in which it was constructed

The Laudam told me that the door was as old as the world, and that when everything started, so many years ago, the door was closed and he was given the task to guard it. When the door was closed, the secrets of the life and of the death were trapped on the other side and the men than came to be later didn’t know these secrets.

As the years went by, the men that were became sentient and asked themselves about the meaning of life, of thought, of being and of death, but they didn’t find any answers, no matter how hard they tried.

They couldn’t find them because those answers were behind the door.

Entire philosophies and religions were designed, crafted and conceived to try and explain the meaning of the lost things, but for all their efforts, the answers they invented were always incomplete, subjective, absurd or just plain ridiculous.

That was, until the first man found the door.
That man had been looking for answers just like his brothers, but he thought that maybe those answers could be found in nature, and in the old things. Other men made fun of him, they expelled him from their primitive tribes, but the man was not discouraged and on he looked, one day finding the Laudam, and becoming the first man to walk through the door.

I started to ask what had been the fate of that man, but the Laudam hushed me with a glance and continued.

With time, other men had come, they had walked through and had discovered the truths of the world, and even though sometimes they were many centuries apart, there always came another man looking for the door.

And now that man was me.

The Laudam fixed me with his most terrifying stare yet, and asked me if I wanted to walk through.
I told him I had questions.
He told me that was natural.
My questions were more of form than of lore, more than being curious about what would I find on the other side, I wanted to know what had happened to those men who had crossed, but more than anything, I wanted to know why would anyone want to cross again.

The Laudam was surprised, I could tell. He told me I was a rather unusual human, but he was satisfied with my questions, which he considered wise. He explained that by walking through the door all the truths are revealed, but such as they are unto themselves, these truths can only be understood by those who have crossed. Many men before me had yielded to the temptation of telling their brothers and their friends about the truths of the world, only to discover that no one else could understand them. After a fashion, they became weary and lonely, and died of sadness and abandonment.

Some had come back to the door, trying to go back to a world where the answers are unknown. But that is not they way things work. To walk through the door once again was to become part of that all encompassing existence, pure and serene, it was to transcend the inexorable truths of the universe and to never come back. I told the Laudam I didn’t think that to be such a terrible destiny, but his eyes made me understand I should remain quiet. He asked whether I had a single clue what it was like to become an inexorable truth.
I told him I didn’t
He told me in that case I should not open my mouth to say stupid things.

The Laudam took me in front of the door and asked me once again if I wanted to walk through.
I took a deep breath and thought hard about how little I knew, about all the hardships I endured when looking for this place and the sleepless nights that led to this moment.

Then I thought of those who had come before me, those who had found the door and had crossed, I though how sublime must be the feeling of ultimate understanding, to be so close to the fundamental purpose of the universe, how lonely it must be to not be able to share it with anyone.

But on the other side of the door lied the answers to all the questions, everything I had dreamed about was right there, waiting for me, waiting to let me drink of its essence.
Standing there, on the verge of achieving everything I ever hoped for, I found myself afraid of making my wishes come true, realizing that the price to pay was perhaps too high.
I couldn’t remember why I had started this journey, but I remembered having more fun looking for the door than actually finding it. Life, it occurred to me, was more beautiful out on the winding path, not in the static destination.
Divinity was a step away from me, but divinity was solitude.
I found my answer, I told the Laudam that I did not wish to walk trough the door.

His smile was kind for the first time and he patted my back and told me that all was well, I could go on and find the answers by myself, he pointed me in a direction to continue my journey and gave me a sharp push to help me get started.

I walked slowly to the edge of the clearing and the Laudam called out to me and told me that if I continued in the direction I was going, straight to the north, it would be only a few minutes until I reached the sacred place were all the answers can be found, where all the mysteries are revealed, where all the lies can be uncovered. He told me on this path I would reach the garden of beginnings, the cradle of the world, the first place, the original thought…

I asked him where did the door lead to then.
He smiled malevolently and stood still, becoming a part of the canvas, like another shadow in the forest, I tried to keep him in my sight but soon discovered something more important.

The door was gone.