The Door of Memories

Chapter One

He picks up a lonely white flower for his girlfriend to go with his proposal. He smiles as his fingers caress the smooth box. He straightens his tuxedo and flicks off some nonexistent dust. He doesn't know why he is straightening himself up, for there is no need, he is alone.

He had just found a magnificent garden brimming with colorful flowers of all kinds and doors of all colors, shapes, and sizes.

He walks toward a musty teal door. It looks extremely out of place among the bright flowers. The flowers grow in vines up against the wall, making it appear as though it is nonexistent.

He does not know why he was pulled towards the oldest door with peeling paint and covered in dust.

He opens the door and smells something familiar, but he just can't place it. He enters to find his mother, right before a Thanksgiving dinner.

She looks much younger, as though this is in the past. He watches her spritz perfume onto herself, that's the smell he recognized. He watches himself play with his trains and his mother kissing his finger that he had run over. She stuffs her pockets with something round and shiny. She pulls another out of the stash, handing it to the little him, he smiles with gratitude as he pops it into his mouth. He can almost taste the caramel dissolving into a thin layer revealing the green apple substance inside.

Then he realizes. That was the door to his childhood home. This is his happiest memory.

A wall of smells rams into him and focus sharpens. He can smell the turkey in the oven, hear the gravy boiling on the stove, and his uncles laughing off about something.

The bliss ceases when he turns around, feeling something cold on his back. His stomach tightens as notices his mother losing focus and the scents and sounds of the feast have ceased.

He frantically gropes at his mother, wanting to feel her smooth skin only one more time. Have a kiss to make it better, just one more time. One more green apple caramel. One more.

He is ripped outside and when he tries the knob, locked.

His phone frantically buzzes where it lays in his breast pocket.

His eyes widen as he sees the 13 missed calls and one text, all from his dad, the text reads: Your mother is dead.