Behind the Closet Door

This is what happened:

"There are tables in my closet," the child was saying. "Big, long tables, all piled up high with some kind of stuff."

The child's mother, Linda, was still almost asleep and hoping to return to that gentle bliss completely in a moment. She answered, "That's alright, Honey. It was just a dream. You don’t have room in your closet for tables."

But the young child was not consoled. She was crying, her eyes still fixed on the closet door, which was slightly ajar. "It wasn't a dream. I saw them. I saw all the people walking around the tables. I saw the mountains and the sky. I saw it all."

Linda heard little of what the child was saying. Sitting on the edge of the bed in the warm semi-darkness of her daughter's small bedroom, she kept dozing, her head drooping downward, even as she tried to hold and comfort her child.

But then she heard a small sound, a slight creaking of the closet door behind her. Adrenaline shot throughout her entire body. The murky fog of interrupted sleep was instantly and forcefully driven from her mind, leaving a dull throb in her head.

Linda looked down at her daughter's face, which was still a mask of tears and night terror. She shifted herself on the bed, so that she could see the closet behind her. Slowly she turned, not knowing what to expect. In the shadows of the room, Linda could see the closet door. It was still open only a little. Nothing was moving, and she heard no other sounds.

But everything inside of her told her to take her child and get out of the room, right now. Her heart pounded inside her chest, and she tried to control her fear. She did not want to add to the torment her daughter was already feeling. She tried to think clearly of the best course of action.

"Come on, Honey," she said quietly to the child. She stood up and reached for the girl. "Let's go into Mommy's room. You can sleep in my bed for the rest of the night."

Linda was about to lift her daughter from the bed when she very clearly heard another small pop of one of the dry hinges on the closet door. It was followed by a short creaking. Turning her head, she saw the closet door move. She saw it with her own eyes. It had clearly opened about another inch.

Momentarily frozen by the experience, the mother now stood, half bent over her child's bed, staring at the closet door. What if someone has broken into the house? And with Tom gone for another three days... What if someone means to harm us? What if...

Resolutely, the young woman stood up straight, lifting her small daughter up and onto her left hip. Silencing her fears, she determined to know what or who was in the small closet. Slowly, Linda walked across the room to the narrow white door. Reaching out with her right hand, she grabbed the brass-colored handle as her child buried her face into her mother's shoulder.

The door handle felt slightly cool in her hand. It felt normal. The air in the small room was warm and still, comfortable and normal. The small lamp by her daughter's bed gave only a very dim light, adding to the coziness of the bedroom, inviting sleep. In fact, the whole house was quiet and peaceful. It all felt completely normal. She gave the handle a tug.

Pulling the door open, Linda held her breath for several seconds, not aware that she had stopped breathing. As the door came open, nothing in the bedroom changed. No eerie green light spilled from the closet. No dark mist or cold air came seeping into the room. But as the door was fully opened so that she could see inside, her eyes struggled to focus on the contents of the tiny closet beyond the doorway. Her mind struggled to comprehend.

Her very first thought was that she must still be back in her own room, lying in her own bed, sound asleep and dreaming. She could not be seeing what her eyes told her was there. Linda's mind told her that this was well beyond all that is reasonable and possible and real. Then she felt on her face a gentle breeze coming through the closet doorway. And she could smell the sweet scent of the blooms and blossoms that were everywhere before her.

Looking through the closet door, Linda now saw what the child had already seen. There were spectacular mountains on both sides of a wide and fertile valley. High overhead whole flocks of birds were flying across an an incredible, perfect sky. She could hear the chirping and chatter of those birds and the many other animals that were visible everywhere.

And there, stretching out in front of her, were many tables. Huge banquet tables. Hundreds of them, or maybe thousands. And they were all of them piled high with what appeared to be luscious fruit and vegetables and breads, fine and exotic foods of every kind. And there were people. It seemed as though all the people in the world had gathered here, in this beautiful place, to have an incredible feast that was truly fit for kings and queens.

Just then Linda noticed that a man was approaching. And she also noticed that he seemed to be shining, glowing as though with a light from inside. And when she looked back again at all the people milling around the tables, all of them gave off the same kind of glow.

The man's clothing was bright, foreign looking, and not really modern. And yet it almost looked futuristic. Linda tensed as he neared, realizing that he seemed to be looking right at her. He wasn't simply walking nearer, he was headed for her and her child.

Linda shifted her daughter over to the other hip, and held her tightly, ready to slam the door shut and run. The man was smiling a gentle smile. But Linda's heart was racing, ready to fight, ready to run.

"Please, do not be afraid," he said, stopping a few feet beyond the doorway. "I've come to tell you what all of this is that you are seeing."

His voice was so strange. It was loud enough and clear enough to be heard for a very great distance, yet also filled with a kind of peace and mildness that made Linda think of the sounds of the surf crashing over the rocks on the north Pacific coast: loud and forceful, yet forever soothing, quieting the troubled soul.

"Am I dreaming?" Linda asked.

"No. You are fully awake."

"Is this real?" she asked. "I mean, how can any of this be here?"

The man smiled, and then turned slightly, waving a hand to include all that was around and beyond him, saying, "All of this is real. In some ways, it is more real than the world you live in now. It has always been here. And some day, you will be here as well. In fact, there you are, right over there."

Linda looked in the direction that the man was now pointing. At the nearest table, a figure stood that did look a lot like Linda. And when the figure turned to face them, the face was unmistakably her own, although it had been somehow transformed, and was glowing like the others.

Linda gasped, her free hand flying up to cover her mouth. "That can't be me," she said. "How can that be me? I'm right here, standing inside my own house, in my daughter's room."

The shining man smiled again, understanding her confusion. He said, "Yes. You live within the realm of time, and so you do not understand the things which are beyond time. This is God's creation, the new creation which will be, and has always been, and always will be, for those who belong to Him."

Now Linda felt a dizziness that buzzed all around inside her head.

"But I am not even religious," she said. "I'm not a Christian or a Jew or anything like that. I'm not even sure that I believe God exists. How can I be standing over there now, if I'm here now. And how can I belong to God if I don't even know who He is?"

"Exactly," said the man. "This that you are now seeing has always been, for an eternity. This is the reality toward which you are still moving. For you, this is the future. As for how such things can be, they cannot be, except that God makes them so. And so it is, for it pleases Him. The day will come when you will see and understand the truth that you are still seeking. Until then, you will be wondering how this world and your world can both be real at the same time."

Linda shook her head. None of the words she was hearing made any sense to her. The whole thing must be a dream, or some kind of hallucination. She was sure that reality was not this hard to get a hold of.

Just then her daughter tugged at Linda's gown, saying, "Look, Mommy! The sun's coming up!"

Linda looked and saw the beautiful brightness that began to transform the entire scene. The sky had already been bright as daylight before, but now it was made all the brighter by the rising sun.

"Actually," the man said, correcting the child, "It's not the sunrise, but the Son and Savior: the Lord Jesus Christ. For there is no more need for the sun or moon in this place."

And even as he spoke, Linda could tell that the light moved closer and closer, into the center of the scene before her, and not higher into the sky. The light moved toward them as a man might walk.

"It's late in the night for you," the shining man was now saying, as he stepped closer. "You must go now and return to bed. Do not worry. You will not forget anything that you have seen here tonight."

And with those words, he reached through and pulled the closet door shut. But just before she lost sight of the incredible world beyond the doorway, Linda caught a glimpse of the face of the Savior in the center of the perfect Light. He was looking right at her, over all the distance that still remained between them. And in His eyes, there was welcome. Linda knew instantly that she would never be able to put into words what she had felt when she saw those eyes.

Standing there facing the closed door for a moment, or for how many minutes she didn't really know, Linda tried to sort out the experience. Then she took hold of the door handle and opened the door again. But it was dark inside, and she could just faintly make out shirts and dresses and jackets hanging there in the closet.

She carried her sleeping child back to the small bed and tucked her in. Then she returned to the closet and looked in again, pulling the clothing aside, and looking beyond. But only the blank wall was there.

Suddenly, Linda felt very sleepy. Checking on her daughter one last time, the mother turned the small lamp off and made her way back across the hall to her own room, her own bed.

It had all been exciting, to say the least. And there was much to think about in the days to come. But for now, she could only think of sleep. Before giving in completely to her exhaustion, Linda sat on the edge of her bed a few moments.

There was one more thing she needed to do. Opening the small drawer of the bedside table, she took out paper and a pen. Then she wrote a note to herself. It was a note she doubted she would really need in the morning. It said simply, "Church" in scrawled letters. She turned off the lamp by her bed and collapsed into the pillows and downward toward deep sleep.

Tom's folks were always inviting the young couple to church gatherings in their home, or at the park, or on the beach. Almost every week they said something about a meeting or special event. Linda's answer had always been a polite but very firm, "No."

Now, however, she knew that she would say, "Yes." She would go and gather with the Christian believers. And she would listen, and she would learn what all of this belief in Jesus is about.

Slipping off into the depths of sleep, she kept seeing the eyes of the Lord, inviting her and welcoming her to the great celebration. And she also remembered the conversation she’d had with the shining man. She remembered asking, "How can I belong to God if I don't even know who He is?"

"Exactly," the man had said.

"Exactly."

"By the tender mercy of our God, the Dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." — Luke 1: 78,79 NRSV

		short story