The warning echoed Jan’s head as he continued to walk down the street. What was that supposed to mean? How could a door be dangerous?

Half an hour ago, Janus Portico had been walking down this same street in the grand old city of New York. He had just gotten off work, and had decided to walk home in order to enjoy the beautiful April weather. That day the sun was shining, the air was about seventy degrees with a light breeze, the kind of day that said, “Winter is officially gone, and Spring is here to stay.” Certainly not the kind of day that would make one feel as though he had anything to worry about.

But yet it was that on this selfsame day, as Jan was wondering the streets, he had happened upon a small sign he had never noticed before, despite taking this route home every day. The sign, set in front of a dingy set of windows, read: “Madame Tyche’s: Psychic, Tarot Cards, Palmistry.” Evidently, the shop had been created by this Madame Tyche over this winter, which had been an especially bitter one, in a newly vacated space on Seventh Street. Such spaces rarely changed hands, but this was the first time Jan had walked the street in almost five months, ample time for a new shop to be created.

As Jan walked by, he reflected that he had never had his fortune told. Such businesses were something of a rarity in the hustle and bustle of NYC. On a whim, he entered the shop.

Inside, the store was dark and a little stuffy, but not unpleasantly so. The air was heavy with shadows, and Jan did not see the old woman seated in the corner until she moved. He assumed that this must be Madame Tyche.

“Come in, my dear,” she said with a heavy accent that he could not place, beckoning to Jan with both hands spread out in front of her. He moved towards her a bit hesitantly, now doubting his judgment to enter the shop. The room was crowded with various knickknacks and fortune-telling paraphernalia. A trailing shawl was carelessly draped over one of the chairs, and as he passed it tangled Jan’s ankles, temporarily holding him back. He kicked it off and continued toward Madame Tyche.

“Welcome, my dear,” she said, grinning at Jan with a mouth of white, even teeth. For some reason, this surprised Jan. He did not know why, but he had been expecting her teeth to be yellow, if she even had any at all. He would almost have preferred it if they were yellow; their whiteness caught the light from outside that managed to penetrate the dusky air in the shop, gleaming like the Cheshire Cat’s as she smiled.

“What do you want me to do for you?” Madame Tyche asked him, still smiling mysteriously.

“Um. Well. I…I guess I want my fortune told,” he stammered, still wondering if he had made the right choice.

“Hah! I already knew that, my dear. Why else would you be here?” The old fortune teller cackled, her teeth flashing again. “So, I ask again: What do you want me to do for you? Do you want your palms read? A Tarot reading? Or, will it be the crystal ball?”

Jan was silent again. He had never been in a fortune teller’s before. Sensing his uncertainty (she was psychic, after all), Madame Tyche said, “Just show me your palms, dear.”

Jan did so, subjecting his hands, palms up, to the old woman’s scrutiny. She took his right hand in both of hers. Her hands were warm as she gently ran her fingernail down the various lines along his palm.

“I see…I see,” she muttered, and then, even quieter, she began murmuring in some language Jan could not place. One line in particular seemed especially interesting to her; she scrutinized it very closely, both thumbnails pressing into the flesh on either side of the mark. After about a minute, she looked up.

“You have the most interesting hands I have ever seen,” Madame Tyche informed him. “Your lifeline…It is strong and clear until the middle of the hand, but there it fades. It does not disappear, it only becomes lighter. I wonder…I wonder…” Madame Tyche withdrew her hands from his.

“I cannot get a full reading from this alone,”
she continued. “I believe we should consult the Orb. Perhaps it will clarify things.” She stood up and walked across the room to a shelf. Reaching to the highest shelf, Madame Tyche carefully retrieved a beautiful, perfect sphere. It seemed to shine with an inner light all its own as she brought it back to the table Jan was seated at.

When Madame Tyche placed it on the stand, the ball immediately became opaque with a dense fog. She seated herself behind the ball, placed her hands upon its surface, and stared intently at it, not speaking.

It was at this point that Jan’s logic caught up with his situation. He knew that fortune telling was a load of garbage, made up to fool gullible people. The whole mystery about his lifeline was probably some sham to get him to spend more money on more readings. He was really beginning to regret his decision by now. He really did not have the money to carelessly throw away on stupid things like an old soothsayer.

After nearly a full minute, aforementioned old soothsayer spoke. “The fog is clearing,” she said mystically. “I see…ah, but what is that?”

Jan could not help but be interested in what she claimed to see in his future. He would immediately discredit it, but it would be amusing.

Madame Tyche leaned farther over the ball, beginning to speak in that same foreign language she had employed earlier. The fog in the ball turned brightest crimson, then a gentle blue, and finally settled on a lurid purple, like a bruise. Madame Tyche chanted faster. Her voice had taken on a harsh quality that Jan found disconcerting. Not nearly as disconcerting as the wind which had begun in her room, however. It swirled through the shop, lifting small pieces of paper and throwing motes of dust into the air. Fiercer and fiercer Madame Tyche’s chant became, and fiercer and fiercer grew the wind until Jan’s hair was whipping back and forth and he was afraid that he would be hit by the sizable detritus now zooming around Madame Tyche’s shop.

A yellow vase on one of the shelves began wobbling as the wind grew stronger. Jan realized it was going to fall a split second before it did. It tumbled through the air, seeming to fall in slow motion before shattering on the floor.

Before the tinkling of scattered alabaster had even ceased, Madame Tyche stopped chanting. The wind immediately died down. She spoke in a hoarse voice one sentence only: “Beware of doors,” she told him huskily. Jan stared at her.

“Beware…?”

“Beware of doors. That is all I can tell you.”

“But…what is that supposed to mean?” Jan demanded, impatient and scared and angry at himself for feeling afraid.

“That is for you to figure out for yourself,” Madame Tyche said cryptically. Jan could tell he would get no more out of her. “Fine, how much do I owe you?” he asked.

Madame Tyche shook her head. “No money,” she said in the same raspy voice. “On the house.” She looked scared, and Jan wondered what she could have seen.

“Um…well, thank you…” Jan moved briskly towards the door, eager to get back to the safe, sane sunshine of the street outside.

“Don’t forget!” the old woman called after him as he left. He stopped, his hand on the doorknob. “Beware of doors,” she again intoned before turning away and bending down to pick up the broken pieces of the vase. Jan took that as his cue to leave, and did so with some degree of relief.

The light of the street was blinding after the twilight of Madame Tyche’s: Psychic, Tarot Cards, Palmistry. Jan stood for a minute, adjusting himself to the light and noise of New York City. It had felt like he was in a different world in the little room.

Realizing he was standing in the middle of a bustling sidewalk, Jan quickly began walking in the direction of home. As he walked, he brooded on what Madame Tyche had said. He could still see her, white teeth flashing, telling him to beware of doors. The image seemed burned into his retinas, there every time he blinked.

As he walked, Jan’s rational mind began to reassert itself. Fortune telling was bogus. The glowing ball and wind were all part of an act. It was a very convincing act, but nothing more. He had nothing to worry about. Gradually, Jan’s fear abated and he walked more lightly, eager now to get home.

He reached his apartment building. As he was about to walk through the door, a construction worker emerged, carrying a half-dozen large planks of wood. Jan ducked just in time to avoid being clobbered by the two-by-eights.

“Whoops! Sorry, pal! Didn’t see ya there,” the workman said, continuing unabashedly out of the building.

“Moron,” Jan muttered, continuing on through the building to the elevator. He pushed the “UP” button to call the elevator and waited. As the door slid open, a blur rocketed out of it. The blur turned out to be a young boy, off on some quest or another. He almost took Jan’s legs out from under him as sped past, shouting a hurried apology as he careened into the street outside.

Jan shook his head. Where were that kid’s parents, letting him go around like that? Jan walked into the elevator and hit the number 14 to get to his apartment. He reflected, for perhaps the hundredth time, that superstition forbade any apartment building to have a thirteenth floor, instead skipping right from twelve to fourteen. By this logic, Jan himself lived on the thirteenth floor. Of course, that was all bogus, too.

Jan rode the elevator up and reached his room without further incident. As he opened the door, he called to his wife, “I’m home!”

He stepped through the door and immediately lost his footing on the slippery floor. He cried out as he tumbled sideways into the wall.

“Oh! Jan, I’m sorry! I mopped while you were out, and didn’t put the doormat back yet!” His wife, Emily, rushed (sort of, as she was seven and half months pregnant with their first child) into the front hallway. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” Jan said, picking himself up off the floor. This had really not been his day. “Sorry I’m late,” he continued. “I, uh, had a last-minute meeting.”

He really did not want to tell his wife that he had been to see Madame Tyche. This was the first time he had ever had anything to do with fortune telling, and he was pretty sure that she would not approve of it. Fortunately, she accepted his explanation without question.

They went into the living room and talked about their days for a while, then Jan went to get changed. As he walked through the bedroom door, he ran his foot into the doorjamb.

Jan grunted at the sudden pain. He was really having a bad day. As he limped over to the dresser, Jan reflected that there was no pain quite like a stubbed toe. It’s sharp and immediate, but soon subsides and is quickly forgotten. By the time Jan had finished changing, the pain had already mostly gone.

He (carefully) exited the bedroom. The rest of the night passed uneventfully until about ten, when Jan was entering his office. Despite the size of the apartment, Jan’s office was well furnished, with two large bookshelves on either side of the door and a desk that wrapped around the back corner with a brand-new computer on it. On one of the bookshelves, (the left one), there was an antique vase that Jan and Emily had received as a wedding present from Jan’s mother. This particular vase was placed very near to the edge on the top of the bookshelf. Emily always said that she wanted to find a better spot for it, but it really didn’t fit with the décor of the rest of the apartment. Emily had dusted the room earlier that day, and placed the vase back on the shelf a bit too close to the edge.

Just as Jan stepped through, he saw a blur above his head. He flinched to the side, but not in time to completely avoid the falling vase, which had been dislodged by his footsteps. It struck him on the collarbone, and then the foot, before rolling away on the carpeted floor. Surprisingly, it did not break; evidently Jan’s foot had broken its fall. This was little consolation to him at the moment, however, as he howled in pain and clutched his shoulder.

Emily was at his side almost immediately, shouting apologies for leaving the vase too close to the edge. Jan shook her off, still rubbing his shoulder. That had been close; if the vase had hit his head, it would have probably meant a much more serious injury. Assuring Emily that he was alright, Jan decided to turn in early for the night. He had really had enough for one day.

As he lay in bed, he thought about his long day. First, the harrowing fortune telling experience. While that had been an emotional rollercoaster, he could at least now discount it. Then, as he was entering the building, he had narrowly avoided a concussion from the man carrying the boards. The boy from the elevator had almost taken out his legs. Then, he had fallen coming into the apartment, stubbed his toe entering the bedroom, and narrowly avoided a falling vase going into the office.

Jan sat bolt upright. He had just made a connection: every time he had been injured or almost been injured that day, it had been as he entered through a doorway. Beware of doors. The cryptic warning rang in his ears again. Could the old lady have been right? Could he really be in danger every time he walked through a door? If so, what was he supposed to do? Stay here, in this room, until he died? Quit his job, with his new baby so near? Refuse to leave the house, forcing Emily to do all of the shopping?

He stopped. The solution was irrelevant, as the problem was non-existent. A doorway couldn’t be dangerous. He was being silly. All of those things today, they had been accidents, someone being careless. The workman had not bothered to look where he was going, nor had that kid; he had not noticed the missing carpets in the entry hallway and thus had fallen; he was not paying attention when he stubbed his toe; Emily had been a bit careless and placed the vase too close to the edge. It was all rational. With this comforting thought, he fell asleep.
*
*
*

The next morning, Jan had a good feeling. He was not living out a cursed fortune. He would be fine. He got ready for work, kissed Emily, and left, whistling a tune, that old song “Break on Through.” He stopped, and couldn’t help but laugh. That song had been recorded by none other than The Doors! Still chuckling, he called the elevator.

He crossed the lobby, still humming to himself. Something caught his eye right as he was pushing open one of the doors: some flash, probably the sun off of a vehicle. As it turns out, that’s exactly what it was. A car had come out from the parking garage across the street, its elderly driver had attempted to hit the brakes but stepped on the accelerator instead, and the car surged forward, right through the glass doors. The driver had corrected his mistake and slammed on the brakes before the car reached the doors, but it was too late to prevent their demolition.

No one was hurt except for Jan. The car had still been moving with considerable speed when it struck him sidelong, fracturing his pelvis and throwing him into a table.
*
*
*

Everything hurt, but the pain was distant. Except for in his hip, that was, which was in considerable discomfort.

Jan opened his eyes and immediately wished he hadn’t. The bright lights of the hospital room gave him an almost immediate headache. He shut them again, groaning.

“Jan! You’re finally awake!” It was Emily, next to his bed. A nurse, hearing the exclamation, came over from the corner where she had been typing information into a computer. “How are you feeling, Mr. Portico?”

“My head hurts,” Jan answered honestly. “So does my hip, and pretty much everything else.” As he spoke, he opened his eyes again, more slowly this time, and took in his surroundings. Emily was by his bed, looking worried but relieved. The nurse was standing behind her, also looking concerned. He could feel that his head and hip were bandaged, and could see the cast on his right arm.

“Well, based on what happened, I should say that you got lucky,” the nurse said, smiling. “Not everyone struck by a car is so unscathed. You must have good fortune.”

Fortune! That was it! He was just walking through a door when, again, he had been nearly killed. He had been convinced: he could not safely walk through a door again in his life. Jan tried to hide the shock to his psyche by asking, “How long was I out for?”

“About six hours,” Emily told him. “You got really banged up, sweetie. But the doctor says you’ll be ok. You’ll just have to rest for a while, and you’ll have to stay here for a few days.”

Stay here? In the hospital? Perfect! Now he had an excuse not to run the risk of passing through another doorway for a few more days. But after that…How would he explain to Emily that he was cursed? She’d think he was crazy, or, at the least, mistaken. She would probably assume that he had a lingering head injury from the accident. Well, he would have a couple days to figure out how to explain his situation, so for now he just said, “Ok. I don’t think I’ll be moving soon anyway.” How true he hoped that would be!

She smiled at him and kissed him. Then they talked for a while, mostly about the baby, which had been the dominant topic of all of their recent conversation. She left at around eleven, apologizing but saying that she would be better sleeping in her own bed at home. Her belly had really grown heavy, and a hospital bed, she felt, just would not be good for her back at the moment. Jan consented readily, eager for some time alone to think things over. Emily promised to come back tomorrow, and left.

Too tired from the day to think about anything more, Jan quickly fell asleep. His dreams were troubled, but by morning he could not remember any of them.

The next couple of days passed. Emily visited, as did Jan’s boss and a half-dozen other well-wishers. Everyone told him to get well soon. Jan smiled at all of them, concealing his fear of what would happen when he did get well and was eventually forced to leave the hospital. What would happen to him then? Would the next “accident” (if they could rightly be called that) succeed in killing him?

He found himself staring at the door out of his room, brooding over it. The door had developed a sort of stigma over him. Its pale brown wood looked to him like bones, old, decaying bones. He dreaded the day when he would have to leave.

As he healed, Jan began making up excuses that could possibly make him stay longer. He complained of pain in his hip and arm much greater than was actually present, deliberately moved with especial stiffness, and acted feeble. In this manner, Jan stayed in the hospital for almost two weeks, probably a week longer than was necessary for his injuries. Finally, the doctor told him that he could not find any more reason for Jan to stay: his x-rays looked good, the bones were setting nicely, and he thought some time at home would be good for Jan. Jan could not help but privately disagree, but still had no idea how to explain his fear of doorways without having to walk through an extra one, located at the entrance to a mental institution.

Emily felt that Jan’s clearance was great news, and she kissed him before she left that night and congratulated him. “I’ll be here first thing tomorrow to get you home,” she told him.

Jan lay awake until well into the night, dreading the time when he would leave the hospital. He did not know which scared him more: facing death again, or being declared insane for refusing to. The dilemma rolled over and over in his mind before he finally fell into an uneasy sleep.
*
*
*

“Mr. Portico! Mr. Portico! Wake up!”

Jan opened his eyes. A young orderly was standing at his door, obviously in a state of great excitement.

“Whassa matter?” Jan mumbled sleepily.

“It’s your wife,” the orderly told him.

“Emily? What’s wrong?” Jan was instantly awake, quickly sitting up in bed. He winced at the pain in his injuries, but they were not important right now.

“She’s in the maternity ward, Room 2113. Her water broke at 2 o’clock this morning, and she has just checked into the hospital. She’s already fully dilated, and the baby could be born any second!”

“Wha…but…” Jan was thunderstruck. She was only eight months pregnant; this baby was not expected for another four weeks!

“Other nurses are on the way with a wheelchair to take you to see her,” the young man said hurriedly. “Oh, I do hope they hurry up, for your sake!” He was gone just like that, off to help deliver Jan’s first child.

Jan didn’t know what to do. He believed he could probably walk; the maternity ward was not far. But the door…he would have to walk through it. And that would mean…Who knows what could come flying down the hallway in a hospital, especially here in the critical injuries ward? He could just imagine a gurney crashing into him as he stepped out into the hall, smashing into his already injured hip, dropping him, where he could be trampled by whoever was pushing it.

Where were the nurses? He would at least be safer with them. He slowly swung himself out of bed, testing himself. His hip hurt, but not unbearably. He stopped before standing up, though, afraid of what would happen if he left. The open doorway loomed over him, seeming to grimace at him like the maw of a dragon. Scratches in the bone-door made, to his eyes, the rough shape of a leering, laughing face.

The blood pounded in Jan’s ears. What was keeping those nurses? His baby was literally being born right now, and for all they knew he couldn’t walk. The door’s mouth laughed at him, mocking him and his fear.

It had been almost five minutes. Did the nurses have the wrong room? What was happening with Emily? Had he missed the birth of his firstborn? He looked back at the door, loathing it. The face in the door laughed again. The dragon grimaced.

Jan stood up, slowly. That hurt, too, but the pain was not insurmountable. He took a few stiff steps towards the door. The face immediately took on a much more threatening quality from this new angle: the eyes looked narrowed, the mouth less amused. Jan stopped right in front of the door, and extended his left hand to the knob. He stopped it six inches from the handle as though afraid of being burned. From this close, the scratches in the door had lost all form to him. He could not see the jambs that had recently reminded him so forcefully of a dragon. With wild abandon, Jan viciously turned the doorknob and threw the door open and burst through, ready for the worst.

Nothing. He was alone in the hallway. He looked around, heart pounding, waiting for a plane to crash through the windows to kill him, armed gunmen to materialize and fire at him. They were not forthcoming. Having determined his demise was perhaps not imminent, Jan began limping stiffly towards the maternity ward. He was going so slowly; he would never make it in time. The orderly had told him his child could be born any second!

“Mr. Portico! Mr. Portico!”

Jan turned slowly. It was the nurses, finally here to bring him to his wife! They had a wheelchair between the two of them as they ran over to him.

“We’re so sorry we took so long,” One of them said as she helped him seat himself on the seat. “A man came in, bleeding from multiple stab wounds, and we were the only personnel nearby. We had to stabilize him until help arrived.”

“Don’t worry about that now. Just get me to 2113!” Jan said.

The nurses practically ran with Jan to room 2113. He could hear Emily’s exertions behind the door as one of the nurses opened it while the other pushed him through.

“Emily!” he called as he was pushed in. She looked at him, her face strained but relieved.

“Jan! You made it just in time,” she said, before the next contraction seized her.

“You’ll be ok, Emily. You’re doing great. Remember all those maternity classes? Breathe, sweetie. Keep pushing!” Jan rambled.

It was over less than three minutes after he arrived. Jan saw his new daughter for the first time. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life.

The nurses had relayed to Emily and the doctor the story of how they had found Jan almost halfway to the ward. “We would’ve never made it here in time if Jan hadn’t already started the walk,” one of them said.

“You walked here?” said Emily. “With your injuries?”

“Part of the way,” Jan responded. “I couldn’t bear the thought of missing my daughter’s birth.” And it was true. In the end, his desire to be there when his wife bore his child had overpowered Jan’s fear of what the fortune teller had said.

For the rest of his life, Jan never worried about the future. He never went back to Madame Tyche or any other fortune teller ever again. And he walked through a myriad of doors. He was not even scared anymore after he walked through seven doors on the way home with his baby daughter without incident. It had all been silly, really. The future is not to be known.