Into the Manifold

Chapter Three: Anne

"How can we test with scientific methods these ideas of whether we're simulated or not...another thing we should do, is if you want to test this hypothesis that everything is a computation, or that everything is mathematical, we should look precisely at the things where we're the most clueless right now about how we would actually describe it mathematically, and I can't think of anything we're more clueless about right now than consciousness..."

Dr. Max Tegmark, Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

It was her own, miserable baptism—less a cleansing than a burial. The door sealed off a tomb of her sins, an entire world to which she'd never return. A necessary ritual, she knew, but one she mourned. It was the loss of possibilities, the lingering sense that some future she had not yet imagined was suddenly forever beyond her reach. She leaned against the hard surface of the door, making sure it remained shut, confirming her passage was complete. That exact moment was familiar to her—skidding to a halt, eyes wide, waiting for the new world to render from Rorschach-blur into something more familiar.

The space smelled of sawdust and lacquer. Tall, steel shelving units lined a narrow concrete walkway. Boxes were stacked to the ceiling, small yellow signs protruding from each level with serial numbers and prices.

She turned around, nearly laughing at the sight—a long line of doors mounted on a wall, each with a hinge that allowed it to swing out into the aisle. It was a home improvement store. She grabbed the handle of the doorway she had just come through, swinging it back open, revealing nothing but a small gap between the faux-wall it was mounted to and the base structures of the shelving behind it.

"Can I help you?" someone asked.

She nearly jumped with fright, realizing she had not even bothered to check the space for anyone who might have witnessed her arrival.

"I'm just closing up."

It was an elderly woman. She had a deep, rattling southern accent. Its authenticity almost made it seem contrived — as though she were purposely contorting her own mouth to produce the drawl.

"Right, of course," Anne stammered, drawing the back of her hand slowly across her forehead. A drop of sweat fell to the floor with an awkward plop. The woman tilted her head ever so slightly, glancing briefly at Anne's dirty shoes.

"Renovating?" the woman asked, looking at Anne's hand still clinging to the door knob.

"Oh, I," Anne said, releasing her grip, and feeling less safe because of it, "Yeah, just in need of a door."

She was still panting. A drop of sweat broke free from her brow and slid down her nose.

"Well you've got good taste," the woman laughed, "This is the artisanal section."

"Artisanal?"

"Mhm," she nodded, "From local woodworkers. A bit pricey but quite special. There are no machines today that can make some of these shapes. Some things require a human touch."

The woman dragged her hand across the surface of the nearest door. Large, autumnal leaves were carved into its surface. The stain was deep and polished, and Anne watched the reflection of the woman's mauve dress warp across the surface of the carvings.

"Anyhow," the woman said, "I'm just closing out the register. I'll holler at you when I'm closing the doors."

"Thanks," Anne said, feigning a smile.

These people, the ones she encountered between the doors, were just characters in a story to her. Two-dimensional, temporary things—the blurry background scenery en route to some place else. She waited for the woman to disappear around the shelving at the end of the aisle. Once she felt secure in the vacancy of the space, she walked slowly along the wall, marveling at the variety.

Dark wood with pronounced grain.

Wrought iron accents around the frame.

Brushed steel, the handle a sweeping vertical arc.

A glowing brass knob, finger prints quenching its sheen.

It was a rare occasion, finding herself in a position to inspect each door like that. Rarely did she have the time, let alone the desire, to observe such subtleties. It was always an acute focus for her—make the transit as fast as possible and never let anyone else through. Such desperation rarely afforded her a welcome on the other side. Instead she arrived like a fugitive, wary of every gaze.

She removed a small black notebook from her pocket. Years ago, she promised herself she would write down all the places she had been. Increasingly, it felt less like a hobby than it did a duty, the memories like coordinates on a map she alone could navigate. One day, she told herself, it would enable her to find her way back through the doors. She would spend hours reading through its pages, piecing together her journeys. The writing was like some amnesic biography, a collection of disconnected scenes through which she hoped to construct something that resembled purpose. The entries were chaotic, sometimes penned as an afterthought. Most often, she found herself with hardly any sense at all of what the door had looked like on the original side. Her life was perpetual motion, propelled by a feeling so profound that it felt divine. It told her to run.

Or is it telling me to escape? she wondered.

She cracked the spine, looking for vacant space to write in—a small gap along the bottom of her most recent entry. The rest was filled with small descriptions of previous doors and what she found beyond them. In the remaining space she penned:

"Police station ,  cold-→sensed dust + perfume→home improvement store."

She closed the notebook and placed it back into her pocket. She strode over to the wall and felt the handle of the door closest to her.

Artisanal.

Laughing to herself, she opened the door. The shadowy space beneath the shelves was cold, drafting along the floor toward her ankles. Slowly, she pressed it shut, placing her ear against the seam of the frame.

Sunshine, warmth, she thought, and flowers?

Days before, she would have killed for that escape. But she was seeking something else—a bit of gloom.

One of those moods, she thought.

She walked to the next door, dragging her fingertip along the wall. The handle was a twisted piece of metal. She traced the crease of the frame and closed her eyes.

A city, raining, busy, she thought. She could feel the scarcity of space, the shoulder-to-shoulder sidewalks bustling beyond.

Too busy.

She looked along the wall to the last door in the row. There, slipping beneath its frame, was a slender finger of fog, sliding ethereally along the concrete floor.

She could never actually see these things that lay beyond the doors. It was never something tangible, so to speak, but rather like a memory. Each door, despite for the most part having never previously granted her passage, pressed upon her particular sensations.

She closed her eyes, tasting salt on her lips, feeling mist collecting on her lashes. And there was a light—flashing, blinking.

"Miss?" called the elderly woman.

A lighthouse!

Anne felt strangely compelled to run for that door, imagining the tortured rocks of the coast, the immense sweep of the light, and the deep, solemn roar of the ocean.

"I'll be closing now."

She couldn't make it. Instead, Anne grabbed the handle closest to her, glanced longingly at the dream-like fog spreading across the floor, and prepared herself for another crossing.

She swung open the door, catching a glimpse of the woman's mauve dress rounding the corner, and heaved herself through the frame and into the humid darkness of a new city.