Future Visions With Dusty Covers.

It was odd, he considered, how he'd never seen this door before; he'd been through here many times in his life – it was his home, after all – yet he was sure this wall was featureless, save for a few cracks in the ageing plasterwork, yet here it was. And as he ran his fingers around the weathered door frame, then over the dark, worn surface of the door itself, it was clear even to him that this door had been here for many years.

Another thing that surprised him was that something else had escaped his notice until now; the lack of a door knob, or latch, or a handle of any kind to allow access to whatever was beyond. He looked again around the door frame and the door's surface, then to the adjacent wall, believing that perhaps there was some secret mechanism to gain entry, yet none could be found or, at least, none that he could see or detect by touch. Why would one construct a door that couldn't be opened from the outside? Can it even be opened from within? The questions puzzled him and the further question surfaced as to whether this was indeed a door at all, but an architectural folly, designed to give scale to a building that it otherwise lacked. He leaned against it, bearing a little weight upon it. It shifted, just a little, but it definitely moved. So this was a door, presumably swollen shut by years of absorbing moisture into the untreated wood. Then this is no folly, there is definitely a room beyond. But what does this room house, he considered with a frown. He bore his full weight against the door with a heavy thud and while it shifted a little more in its frame, it remained steadfastly closed to him,

He stepped back, scowling indignantly. His curiosity regarding this oddity had piqued sufficiently to have peaked and he wasn't going to back down over a stupid, stiff door that some incompetent neglected to fit a handle to. "To hell with it!"... he grimaced, raising his left foot and planting it's boot squarely in the centre of the obstinate orifice. It budged a bit more, enough to tell him that one more kick...

His foot landed into it a second time and it flew open. The lack of a substantial door beneath his foot unbalanced him, sending him tumbling to the ground in a thick plume of dust. The door fell from its hinges, following the attack upon it, landing on the back of its attacker, knocking the wind out of him and making him gasp and choke in an even larger pall of dust. He hefted himself up, choking through the dust and muttering profanity at the weight upon his back, until he managed a position in which he could manhandle the door up and away, leaning it against the nearest wall. He looked around, yet the wan light from the corridor offered little illumination to this dusty, oppressive, windowless room. He felt along the nearest wall, believing that there must be a light switch around here. He wasn't really expecting to find one, given the already curious nature of this room, but alas, there it was, a round dimple of Bakelite, with a cold metal ball protruding from its surface. He slowly flicked the switch and was genuinely surprised that lights came on, a pale yellow light from the aged, dust-covered bronze sconces situated along three of the room's four walls, now bathed the environment in an eerie glow. 

He took in his surroundings, feeling decidedly uneasy. There was nothing in this room of approximately ten feet by ten, save for a table and chair of simple design in its centre and upon the table, three small and untidy stacks of books and a few more tomes, scattered hither and yon. He squinted his eyes warily. "Just books?..." he quizzed to himself. He stepped uncertainly to the table and scanned its surface; both table and books were thick with dust, as if abandoned long ago. He picked up the nearest book, one that had fallen open as it had fell. Choking as he blew away the dust, some of it remained and it made some of the text difficult to read, but his eyes narrowed quizzically as he scanned through the writing. It seemed fantastic in its themes, of machines controlled by humans within and of clandestine organisations. Another book told of men with bodies engineered for war and worlds far away from our own, yet which humans inhabit. He picked up another book, which told of an assassin – a hunter, by trade – who herself had become hunted. He flicked through the pages of yet another book with nervous interest, to find that the story suddenly stopped, with many pages of the book yet to spare, as if its author had, for reasons unknown, abandoned this work. Perhaps in favour of another?

It was all very strange. The nature of the writing indicated that the author wrote possible depictions of the future, or many different futures, for as he took one book after another, while all the stories were different, albeit some revisiting the same individuals from some of the previous books he saw, the central theme was very much the same; future worlds. It soon became apparent to him however, that a number of these tales, these future visions with dusty covers, had seen a similar fate to that of one of the earlier books; abandoned, their tales incomplete, the characters contained within left in a state of limbo, waiting in perpetuity for the remainder of their stories to be told, unaware that they may never be so. It saddened him and he felt a strange sense of loss that these books were simply neglected, here in the dark, some of them obviously incomplete, others scarcely cohesive. He closed the book in his hand and regarded its cover. Even upon removing the coating of dust, its title was illegible, a couple of scraps of gilt lettering, faded and patinated over time. He turned his attention then to the open doorway, or rather the doorway now absent of its door, then back to the book in his hand and subsequently the rest of the tomes laid about the table. These stories have been contained in the dark for long enough, he pondered. Perhaps it's time they saw the light of day. 

He gathered up a small number of books and cradled them in his arms, the ample dust coating them rubbing off onto his shirt, already grubby from his spill onto the floor. He regarded the table once more, before turning slowly on his heel and making toward the entrance. He paused at the threshold, turning again toward the table, strewn with the remaining books and smiled sadly.

"Don't worry, I'll be back for you soon. I'll leave the light on for you."