The lab rats are chewing at their own legs. The door with a red X, which used to be a rectangular card with a red X, drives them mad; they abhor it, and they are out of their primitive minds as they explode at it, gnaw at it, and the electricity surges and they will do anything that needs to be done to make it stop. This is perfection, compliance, and redundancy. The nerves obey. A reprieve will be granted shortly, but first, they must flail a bit longer, a bit more viciously, at the door—until their noses bleed. Until it is time to end it. Then come the inoculations. The notetaking is meticulous, with endless scratching on ink-soaked paper forms.
And he has three doors, but all are much larger. One with an X in red, like them. One with a blue dot—he wore a bow tie with blue polka dots at his fifth-grade graduation. In the group photo, he is the lad in the back, not looking at the camera. The third door has no knob and a small, circular window. All the doors are the color of lemons. The gallery is whole and complete, and the white lab coats are scribbling. They all wear eyewear, broad black frames on placid faces. Gray beards are stroked, black beards are rubbed, and a mustache or two are pulled. The silky perfume is not the kind that should be wafting here. Still, it is, and the thick telescoping bifocals fog with it, the alluring stench, and all the faces want to know what he will do, and they avoid staring at the lithe legs protruding from the pencil skirts in their climate-controlled bubble. The skirts enjoy the tension they bring. No one is allowed to wager on what he will do. This is science. This is all cataloged, archived, and he knows they are watching, though he can’t see them. Because they are behind the door. All the doors. He can hear them breathe, but that may be a nightmare of his own labor and breath. And the light goes harsh.
He wants to run. But he knows the ground will rush up to meet his feet. The pounding can only be absorbed for so long. Then he needs to stop. Sip a little water from the tin cup that hangs on the frayed gray string. It’s his tin cup, over and over. On his haunches, he sits, eyes circling, nervous system on high alert, and gathers the obligatory energy. To jump, to smash a door. But which one? His nose begins to bleed. Again.
The rats have no tin cup. But there is a small dripping spigot. They punch it for seed, maybe a grain of rice. They need to drink. They need to find the other side of the door. They can smell the perfume, too. It drives them crazy and ravenous, and they eat a weak one. The fur is mixed in red. Skinning, that's what this is. If they do this awful thing, the lights won't flicker. At least in their spinning brain, that is what they have been conditioned to know. They are flickering, too. One wall is a mirror; they see it in their midnight eyes, pinholes in a stiff fabric. The flickering light. That’ll bring it. The metal floor will sizzle, and they will jump and smash at the door. The one with the red X. The other side is always the other side, and when they finally claw through it, they will know that there is another door, always another door, and another red X. They stop, the pair that remains, the two that made it, so they can begin again, and they pant, insanely pleased at their progress.
He is pacing, pondering that bow tie. One lab coat says he is a thinker, and they nod. Legs cross and uncross and cross again. And one lab coat, the one with unique access through other more profound doors, raises a finger, and the lights flicker, and this time he smashes at the third door, the one without a knob but a window. And he is through it. It was not a door at all. But paper, a perfect painting of a door. The other two doors were made of wood, and he chose wisely, finally. And he gets a more significant tin cup now, the floor is still rolling, and there is another door off to his right, slightly cracked open, with no visible light.
But there is a bare bulb and a long metal chain that dangles down to his nose. He sees it clearly even in the dark. The dark is his sweet, burning acquaintance. The little clock on the wall tells him when it will be dark, and he waits for it as he lunges at doors when it is time for that, and his nose bleeds less in the dark, and it is quiet, except for rustling, clicking claws on metal, and soft thudding. The walls don’t reflect him in the dark. He curls less tightly then, too.
I think he’s going to pull it, one lab coat says.
I bet he doesn’t, says another. He'll go for the door.
This one is a thinker, a third says.
He reaches up and yanks the cord, seeds rain from the invisible ceiling, the perfume disappears, the tin cup overflows, the bulb burns soft, and the floor stops pushing up to meet his swollen, scarred feet.
And the door to his right closes on a green velvet meadow.