Storytime with Amber

Part 1

This is Part 1 of the story. Part 2 can be found here: 
https://storytimewithamber.com/through-the-door/

It had been a day much like any other when she saw it. Elora had woken up, quickly dressed and ate, and then hurried to her morning job. Every day she walked to the small cafe in a highrise building filled with offices where men who wore monochromatic suits and carried identical briefcases made way too much money. They’d all talk about clients and quarters and 401ks. They all worked in finance, whatever that meant, and they all stared right through her, as if she were invisible to them, as they paused their cell phone conversations long enough to order their black coffees to go. Elora knew they all must do different things, for surely there couldn’t be that many people in need of the same financial services, but in her mind they were all the same. 

Her evening job as a bartender was similarly spent serving an unending stream of “whiskey, neat”s to a sea of grey men who worked in finance. Here, the ties had been loosened and sleeves rolled up before attempting to talk to some girl in a tight black dress. Elora’s entire existence comprised walking on dull grey cement and giving drinks to dull grey men. 

Surely there had to be more to life? Elora had come to the city to find lights and life and opportunity, not a cold and constant drizzle. She was afraid of the dark, so supposed she should feel grateful that the grey wasn’t black, but she still struggled to find any joy. She wanted to get away, to escape to something better, to see what else was out there. But in order to leave, she would need money, and in order to get money, she would need to continue to work, and in order to stay and work, she needed to pay her bills, which took all of her money. She was trapped.

So each morning she woke up and put on one of her matching pair of black pants with a plain grey t-shirt and faced the rain that hung in the air more than fell as she walked along the ever-damp pavement to her morning job. Then she ate her dinner and proceeded on in the drearily grey rain to her evening job. Sometimes she’d have a half of a day off to do her laundry or clean her bathroom. Maybe, if she were lucky, she’d have time to read a story. Those were the most joyful her days got, when she was able to escape into another world. Elora was almost too tired to realize just how desperate she was for something to change. Almost.

But this morning there had been a little jay that caught her eye. She had almost ignored it, mistaking him for another off-white pigeon, until she caught the flash of blue as he sped past. Her heart soared at the small beauty, but she couldn’t allow herself to stop and look. She would be late for work. 

Elora had served her 37th tall, black coffee to a person in a tall, black suit when he walked in wearing the same blue as the jay from that morning. Although she recognized his face, she couldn’t remember his name, or even remember where she had seen him before. He waited patiently in line, not fidgeting or looking at a cellphone, just… waiting. In his blue. How unusual.

Four more black coffees and he had reached the counter.

“Hey Elora!” he greeted.

“Oh hi… there,” she replied, floundering for his name and surprised that he remembered hers. In an attempt to cover up her lack of knowledge about the familiar stranger, she pushed on.

“What’ll you have?” 

She had already pulled up a cup and written black on it when he said, “I’ll try a caramel latte.”

Elora hastily scribbled out the black and wrote caramel latte above it before ringing him up. Normally she would’ve taken his name, but she wasn’t sure of how to ask for it and not seem rude when he so clearly remembered hers. It didn’t really matter, she supposed, as his drink order was the only of its kind so it wasn’t likely to get confused with anybody else’s.

He finished paying and then asked her, “Hey, when do you get off?”

“Two,” she said, “but I have an evening job that starts at four.”

She was disappointed at having to reject him, but she didn’t even have time for herself, let alone another person. But he did not seem crestfallen, only thoughtful. 

“Well, if something comes up and you’re miraculously free tonight, we should hang out. It’s been forever.”

“Yeah, ok,” she said, knowing that she wouldn’t have any free time for at least a week and likely wouldn’t see him again. One of the black suits in line cleared his throat in irritation, clearly growing impatient with the wait.

The man took the receipt she handed him and one of the pens on the counter and started to scribble, heedless of the line behind him.

“Here’s my number,” he said, handing the receipt back to her.

“Thanks,” she said before hastily shoving it into her pocket. 

“Black coffee for—wait, no, caramel latte,” her coworker called from down the counter, and the man left to retrieve his drink. The next in line huffed up and ordered a black coffee, to-go, for Jim. The latte drinker left the cafe.

On her lunch break, Elora saw that she had received a text from the manager at the bar. There was a mix-up with the schedule and she didn’t need to come in today. She let out a sigh of relief that she’d have free time to do her shopping. But as she sat down to eat, a squawk made her stand back up. There was a jay under the table. Feathers ruffling at the intrusion, he left the shelter of the awning and flew out into the rain. Elora watched him go.

She decided to pull the crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket, not likely to respond, but hoping the mystery man in blue had written his name along with his phone number, so she could stop trying to remember what it was. The lack of knowing was killing her.

“Nothing will change unless you change it.
412 Cherry St”

A fortune cookie saying and an address? What an odd guy, Elora thought dismissively and took a bite of her salad. She had already wasted 18 of the 30 minutes she got to eat, and she was starving. Her mind turned back to her plans for after work, figuring out the best way to use the scrap of free time she’d been granted.

After her 187th cup of black coffee, her mind had strayed back to the piece of paper she had been given. Nothing was going to change unless she changed it. On the one hand, she really needed to pick up some soap and a few things to eat – her fridge was completely bare and she needed to stop going to bed hungry. But on the other hand, she dreamt every single day of all the ways she wanted her life to change.

If he had simply given her his name with a number, she could have thrown the paper away and forgot about it. But she still couldn’t remember what to call him and the address was just down the street from here. If she went to the corner mart at the other side of her apartment, Cherry Street was practically on the way. She might as well check it out. After all, “nothing was going to change unless she changed it.”

2pm finally came and Elora took off her apron and clocked out, leaving the cafe without so much as a backwards glance to the coworkers who remained to serve the never-ending line of faceless customers. She never had down-time there, so there wasn’t much socialization between her and the other staff. They worked together well enough, but they didn’t know each other. The multiple jobs that they all had to work just to pay rent meant that they were as exhausted as she was—definitely lacking the energy to see each other outside of work. At least it made leaving at the end of the day easier, even when it was busy and she was leaving a coworker to handle things alone.

Her plan was to walk past the address, just to glance at it. If it was a shop, maybe peek inside and see if it was something interesting. Not that she had the money to spend on interesting things, but it couldn’t hurt to look. When she got there though, she didn’t see the address. 400, 404, 422. No 412. Turning around, she walked back in the other direction and peered into a cement arch that led to an alley. The arch was just big enough to walk under and the alley was short, not spanning the length of entire streets like many of the alleys in the city did. Inside, there was a door marked with 412 on it, but that wasn’t what she noticed. The window above the numbers shone with color. It was bright and beautiful, like a shimmering rainbow. Until the blue today, it was the first true color that she had seen in years. 

That one window was enough to wipe away all of the grey that covered this city. It surrounded Elora and sucked her in. She had to see more; she needed more color. Taking a deep breath, she knocked, but the sound didn’t come out as loud as she had intended. Instead of rapping against the door, she had inadvertently nudged it ajar. The hinges creaked and she realized that not only was the door not locked, it wasn’t even latched shut. Tiny sparkles of color came out from the edge of the door, before dying under the grey, lifeless rain. She needed more. 

Pushing the door fully open, Elora was blinded by the brightness that surrounded her. She stumbled over the threshold and then began falling to the side, bracing her arm to catch herself. The floor rose up to meet her and then kept rising as she fell and tumbled through space, surrounded by color so bright that it pushed in against her and roared through her ears. She tasted and smelt color and, through the baptism of light, she was finally cleansed of the coffee and cigarette funk that always clung to her. 

Her stomach heaved as she tumbled around, falling and falling. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the light shone through, dancing with the veins on her eyelids. It was a relief then when she came crashing to a halt. Opening her eyes, she saw a crystal blue sky. The sun blinded as her eyes adjusted to the light that had been absent from her life for so long. The ground beneath her was so much softer than the rough cement that had imprisoned her for the past few years. Looking down, she saw a lush hillside with wildflowers all around and pops of color everywhere she looked. 

Tears rolled down Elora’s face as she drank it all in. This was freedom. Being surrounded by beauty and light and life was exactly what she had needed for so long. Gone were the skyscrapers, the endless grey mist, and the men in monochromatic suits. 

There was a city below, with people bustling to and fro on a road leading into the city walls. Inside the city was a white palace, glistening with a hundred colors like mother of pearl. Even the tallest structure in this new city didn’t remind her of the lifelessness of where she had come from.

Turning around, Elora saw the door behind her. It must have been the other side to the one that she stepped through. It stood there, on the side of the hill, with no walls to support it. Through its window, she saw a faint grey drizzle falling over the glass, distorting the grey cement blocks that made up the alley behind it. Elora remembered her life, her apartment, her jobs, her responsibilities. She thought of the bleak and colorless world behind that door. And then she grabbed the door handle and closed the door shut, turning the lock.