This is just a fun story. Didn't really write it to experiment with anything other than to write out an idea from a really cool dream I had recently. I ended up creating a sci-fi short story with a little bit of mystery and some hidden science acting as magic. Enjoy and critique as you feel the need.
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The Gateway Knob
Rocky pulled a small box off the top shelf of the closet and opened it. Inside was several old rusty locks, an old skeleton key and a doorknob. He was amazed that the doorknob looked almost brand new, even though it's design was certainly from the turn of the century. Then as he stared at it, a memory flashed through his mind.
"Hey, John? Come here a second," he said.
A tall, middle aged man appeared from around the corner. "What is it?" he asked.
Rocky held up the doorknob for him to see. "Do you remember this? Grandpa used to have it in his toy workshop. It hung off of that old wooden door at the back of the room. The one that went nowhere."
John nodded. "I remember that. There were windows there too, but all of them were covered with bricks," he said.
Rocky nodded. "Yeah, and the odd part was that the windows and frames were still there. It's like someone just bricked them shut without bothering to remove the windows or the door first."
John chuckled. "That's not hard to believe. When they built the new drugstore next door to grandpa's old toy shop, they built right up against his building. Before they did, there was a narrow alleyway through there. Hence the door and windows."
Rocky picked up the doorknob and studied it. "It's too bad it's just a doorknob. If it was the whole lock assembly, I might want to add it to the door on my study. It would be a nice addition to the hickory doors I put on there last year."
John shrugged. "Why not just keep it and see if you find something to put it on. A doorknob that old in that good a shape is hard to come by. Besides, grandpa seemed to value it pretty highly. He told dad to protect it with his life. And now that he's gone, I can't see anything wrong with you taking on that task."
Rocky pondered this for a moment, and then nodded. "Alright, I'll do it. I don't know what sentimental value it had to grandpa, but if it did have some, then it's only right for me to keep it as a family heirloom."
Rocky finished helping his brother and the rest of the family clean out his dad's old belongings, helped his mother settle into her new life as a widow, and then returned home to their own busy lives. For several months the doorknob rested quietly in Rocky's workshop, waiting for a chance to be used.
And then that day came.
Rocky was walking through the house to his study to do some research on particle physics for a project he was working on for the college physics department. As he reached for the door handle, he heard a disheartening pop and felt the door handle crumble in his hand. He held up the busted handled and noticed that the ornate wood that it was made from had dry rotted and was now falling apart.
"I knew I should have stuck with brass handles," he muttered.
He trotted down to his workshop and fumbled through dozens of draws and bins of various parts and pieces he kept for various household maintenance tasks that popped up from time to time. He had made a habit of this due to the frequency of problems that occurred around the house, and the odd hours at which they occurred. There was also the fact that most of these issues happened outside of normal business hours for the local hardware store. Maintaining his classic, hundred year old home may have been a chore, but it was one he enjoyed. Science wasn't his only love. He had gained a fond affection for tinkering from both his dad, and his grandpa, and his home provided plenty of opportunities for just that.
After nearly twenty minutes of fruitless searching, he stopped and rested his hands on his hips as he thought. "Don't I have any spare door handles?" he wondered. Just then he remembered the doorknob he had brought home from his dad's old workshop. He quickly reached up on a nearby shelf, pulled down a small box and fished out the doorknob. It looked just as new as he had remembered it. He quickly put the box away and strolled back into the house.
He took a few quick seconds, placed the doorknob over the post where the previous handle had been, and gave it a firm push to seat it. When he did he heard a soft click, and then a chime. Curious, he looked down at the doorknob and was surprised to see a small, glowing green square on the door just above the doorknob. He bent down to study it closer. In the center of the square, a dark blue one, highlighted in a glowing white aura. He put his hand over the square and found that the light was coming from inside the door, not from the room itself.
"That's odd," he thought as he examined it further. He reached down and turned the doorknob to open the door so he could look behind it and felt it instead turn with a "click, click, click" sound. He looked at it again and noticed that the dark blue one was now a slightly lighter blue number four. This really puzzled him. He knelt down in front of the doorknob and gently turned it to the right again. Again it clicked, and again the number and its color changed. He turned it several clicks more until it stopped at a very light blue ten. Puzzled he tried to fish his reading glasses out of his shirt pocket when he lost his balance. Instinctively he reached for the doorknob to catch himself.
But instead, the doorknob popped off in his hand and he landed flat on his back. As he lay on his back, somewhat chagrined, he lifted the doorknob up to his face, put on his reading glasses and studied it. There was nothing special about it. No holes, or creases or anything that would indicate that it was special. He glanced over at the door and noticed that the small green square was gone. After picking himself up off the floor, he walked over to the door and put the doorknob on the post and pressed down on it.
Again the little square and number appeared. He turned it back to the left out of curiosity and found that the numbers decreased. This strange doorknob was really starting to both fascinate him, and alarm him slightly. The alarm came more from the fact that he couldn't explain the appearance of the strange green box. He pressed in on the doorknob a second time, thinking that since the first time he had pressed it had brought about the green box with a number, maybe a second time would bring something else.
This time however, something strange happened. The little green box turned a bright, fire engine red, and began to blink. Moments later he could hear the rush of wind and the roar of water on the other side. Fearing that a pipe had burst or a window may have broken, he turned the doorknob and felt the door suddenly lurch back at him as a strong wind blew hard against it. He grabbed it and tried to hold on, but found that the wind was much stronger than he could have expected.
"Oh great! A storm's come up and it broke one of my windows," he muttered. He flung the door open and expected to stride into a disheveled study drenched with rain from a shattered window, he instead found himself staring across a darkened sea shore with three bright moons peaking through bluish gray storm clouds that flickered with crimson red lightning on the horizon. He took a quick second to look behind himself to be sure he wasn't dreaming. His house was still there, yet his eyes and ears and nose told him a different story about what was beyond the door. And three moons??
"No, this has to be a dream!" he thought. But the unmistakable smell and taste of salt in the air, and the smell of the sea told him otherwise. He reached down and scooped up some of the sand in his hand. It was cold, and wet, but it was sand. As he tried to make sense of it all, logic gave way to panic and with all his strength he slammed the door shut. Moments later the sound of wind vanished and the little red blinking square turned back to a solid green square.
Rocky tried to get his wits about him as he breathed rapidly. "I've got to be seeing things," he said as he gasped for air. Slowly he brought his fear under control and logic once more took over. He looked at the doorknob again and studied it. After several moments he took a deep breath and turned the doorknob to the right again until it stopped at twenty six. He tried turning it further, but it wouldn't go.
"Whatever these numbers mean, there is apparently only twenty six of them," he thought. He pressed in on the doorknob again and watched as the green box turned red and began blinking again. This time the sounds of activity and the clip clop of horses on cobbled streets trickled through the door. He could see a thin veil of brilliant sunshine peaking around the edges of the door. He cautiously turned the doorknob and swung the door open. Inside he found a cobblestone street lined with strangely designed buildings of many colors with brilliant colorful banners that waved from every window. Even the people were dressed in a multitude of colors like jesters preparing to entertain a crowd.
He cautiously stepped through the open doorway and studied the city around him. At first nobody paid attention to him. But a man in a tailor fit gray suit is hard to ignore in a city of a thousand colors. After a few moments the entire city seemed to grind to a halt. They all stood around him in the street and stared in amazement.
One man began shouting at him in a language he didn't recognize. Then two more. Then the whole crowd seemed to erupt in angry protest as they began to march towards him. Rocky quickly realized that something wasn't right and immediately retreated through the door. But just as he turned to close it behind him, something hit him on the head and his whole world immediately sank into darkness.
The next thing he remembered was feeling the hand of his housekeeper shaking him.
"Doctor, wake up. You'll be late for your classes," she said.
He opened his eyes and found himself sitting in his study as the light of the mid-morning sun streamed in through the windows. He adjusted himself in his chair and felt a book tumble from his lap. Looking down at the title he realized it had been the book he had come for the previous night. As he tried to get up his head began to throb. He winced at the pain.
"Can I get you anything?" asked the housekeeper.
"Some tea and an aspirin," said Rocky.
The housekeeper quickly slipped away to retrieve the requested items. As he waited he glanced at his watch and was surprised at the time. When the housekeeper returned, he quickly gulped down the tea and aspirin, and then hurried out of the house. Later that day after class, Rocky was sitting in the faculty lounge pondering what he had seen the night before. As he did, a fellow teacher came over and sat down next to him.
"Afternoon, professor," said the man in a light and jubilant tone.
Rocky nodded slowly as his mind was preoccupied with other things.
"Something on your mind?" asked the man.
Rocky took a deep breath and said, "Last night, the handle on the door to my study broke. When I went to get a replacement, I couldn't find a regular handle. So I took an old antique doorknob and used that as a temporary replacement. But that's when things got strange. When I pressed it onto the post where the handle had been, it chimed and a small green square appeared on the door with a number in the middle of it. The number went up or down depending on which way I turned it. If I pressed it again, something strange happened. The study vanished and a strange world opened behind it. I know it couldn't have been real, yet there it was, real as the nose on my face."
The man laughed. "Then what happened?" he asked.
"Well, as any good scientist does, I repeated the events. The first time I turned the doorknob, I stopped when I reached the number read eight. The second time I turned it until it stopped at the number twenty six. This time when I opened the door, there was this beautiful, multicolored city on the other side. The buildings sort of reminded me of Florence during the renaissance."
"Were there people there?" asked the man.
Rocky nodded. "They were all dressed in multiple colors too. But when they finally spotted me, they didn't seem too happy to see me. They started to yell and charge at me. Next thing I knew, my housekeeper was waking me up because I was late for classes."
The man smirked. "Sounds like you were having quite a dream last night."
Rocky shook his head. "It wasn't a dream. It was real. I remember every detail of it."
"Come now, doctor. What you're telling me sounds more like magic than reality. No doorknob can just open gateways to other places just by placing it on a door," said the man.
"I know what I saw. If you don't believe me, I can show you later tonight at my house," said Rocky.
The man smiled. "Alright, I'll be there."
Rocky nodded. "Alright, I'll look forward to it. Until then, I've got a class to teach. So for now I'll be leaving. Good day to you."
The man nodded at Rocky and watched as he strode out of the room. Moments later another man strode up behind him and said, "So he found the knob, eh?"
The first man nodded. "I suspected he might. If not intentionally, then by accident."
"What do we do about it now that he knows it exists?" asked the second man.
"We go there and take it from him. Such technology can't be allowed to remain in his hands," said the first.
The second man chuckled.
"Something funny?" asked the first.
"A famous writer once said that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, or something like that."
The first man grinned. "Then I hope he enjoyed our magic."
The End.
