Many years ago, my grandfather told me a story. Not one with a lesson, not a fable—just something that happened. And the way he told it, I could tell it had been weighing on him for a long time.
We were sitting outside on his small balcony. The air was thick with the scent of oranges from the grove nearby, and his old hands rested on the wooden table, fingers tapping absently against his coffee cup.
“This is about a man named Victor,” he said. “He was a real person. I knew him.”
Victor was smart, maybe too smart for his own good. He had built a life around knowing things—knowing more than other people, always having the upper hand. He was the kind of man who would listen to you, nod politely, and then dismantle everything you had just said with a single well-placed question.
But there was one thing he never questioned—himself.
Then, one day, something happened that cracked that certainty.
It was a phone call.
An old friend he hadn’t spoken to in years. Someone who had once been close but had drifted, as people do. The friend’s voice was strange—excited, maybe nervous. He said, “Victor, I need you to come over. I need to show you something. It’s important.”
Victor hesitated. He had things to do, a routine. He almost said no. But there was something about the way the friend said important—not like a favor, not like nostalgia. More like a warning.
So, reluctantly, he went.
The house was in a quiet part of town, a place with narrow streets and old brick buildings that looked like they were leaning on each other. It was late afternoon, and the sky was already dimming when Victor knocked on the door.
The friend opened it immediately, like he had been waiting. His eyes were sharp, intense. Without greeting, without small talk, he simply said, “Come inside.”
Victor stepped in. The house smelled of something faintly metallic, or maybe it was just his nerves.
There was almost nothing in the room. Just an old chair, a small wooden table, and—on the wall across from them—a door.
But not a normal door.
Victor frowned. He didn’t understand it at first. It wasn’t the color or the shape—it was the way it felt. Something about it made his stomach tighten.
His friend was watching him carefully.
“This door,” the friend said, “it leads somewhere else.”
Victor scoffed. “Somewhere else?”
The friend nodded. “Not like another room. Not like another place in this world.”
Victor wanted to laugh, to dismiss it, to tear it apart logically. But something about the way his friend was looking at him—dead serious, almost pleading—stopped him.
His friend took a step toward the door, pressed his palm against it, and pushed. It swung open effortlessly.
Beyond it—
Victor stopped breathing.
It didn’t make sense.
It should have been a wall, a hallway, something explainable. But what he saw—
Light. Not sunlight, not electric light, but something warmer, deeper, alive. And the air—he could feel it, even standing on this side. It smelled clean, like the first breath after rain.
His mind revolted. This isn’t possible.
His friend stepped through. “Come,” he said.
Victor’s whole body tensed. His muscles locked. He wanted to move, to follow, but—
He couldn’t.
It wasn’t fear, exactly. It was something else. Like standing on the edge of something vast and knowing that once you step forward, you can never step back.
He told himself, Just one more second. I just need to think.
But his friend was already looking at him sadly.
And then—
The door began to close.
Victor panicked. “Wait—”
But his feet still wouldn’t move.
His friend didn’t try to stop it. He just stood there, watching. Not angry, not disappointed—just accepting.
And then the door clicked shut.
And it was gone.
Victor blinked. The room was normal again. The wall where the door had been was just that—a wall. Plain. Unremarkable.
His friend sat down heavily on the old chair. He didn’t say anything.
Victor swallowed. His mouth was dry. “Where did it go?”
His friend shook his head. “It doesn’t open twice.”
Something inside Victor collapsed. A weight settled into his chest, something irreparable.
He tried, later. He tried a thousand times to explain it away, to convince himself he had imagined it.
But he knew.
Because for the rest of his life, he felt it—the absence of something he had never touched. A space inside him that had once been filled with something he didn’t understand, and now never would.
And the worst part?
He had been right there.
Right there.
One step away.
But one step is everything.
My grandfather stopped speaking. The cicadas had gone silent. He looked at me—not with warning, not with pity, but with something softer.
Regret.
I didn’t say anything.
Because I understood. It wasn’t a story about Victor.
It was a story about him.
And maybe, about me.
And maybe, about you.
