Four-way mind meld

Urban legend: The Evil Fake Front Door

by Arisia

Chris had no idea she was building an evil trap. It seemed quite innocuous at the time. It all started when she decided to sell her house.

Now, you have to understand that this was a very odd house. It faced away from the street, for one thing, which led directly to the problem with the door. The front door was on one back corner, or rather one front corner, because the front of the house looked over the bluff and out to the Mississippi River. People driving up the driveway to the house had to park in front of the garage (or behind it, for reasons I've already explained), get out of their car, and walk along the stone walk on the south side of the garage, past a kitchen window, and then up the stairs to the front porch, where there was a nice front door with a doorbell, a welcome mat, and an overhead light. The stone walk had an outdoor light on a lamppost next to one of its three steps down, to make sure people could see the steps and not fall.

Another oddity about the house was the layout. It had been built without blueprints by the vice principal of a local high school. It was his hobby to build a house, move into it, and then sell the previous house. He did this several times, until he ended up in this house. At that point, he retired to Colorado and died.

The oddest thing about the layout was the diagonal garage. It protruded from the corner of the house that was the kitchen. In order to make a good place for a door into the kitchen, the corner was cut out much like the front porch was. For some reason, he decided to put two extra doors where the garage walls met the house walls. This made a total of five doors in the garage. One for the car, one into the kitchen, and three for people to enter the garage from outdoors. The fifth one was on the end of the garage next to the car door.

One of these extra doors even had its own stone walk that merged into the walk to the front door. The other extra door opened onto a flat, grassy area that had a large oak tree in the middle. As it was originally, this door was no problem. It was made like a storm door, with panes of glass, so you could see that the other side was a garage.

But that was fifty years ago.

Having tried unsuccessfully to sell her house several times before, Chris knew it would not be easy. So she decided to do things differently and completely remodel. All windows and doors were replaced. All the external doors, including the ones into the garage, were replaced with matching panel doors with a fan-shaped window at the top. They were even painted the same color and had the same doorknobs and locks. Except the front door. This was replaced with a beautiful cherry door with beveled glass panels. And a brand new doorbell and welcome mat.

The oak tree had died years ago and been replaced with a magnolia tree, and the grass morphed into a garden, which in its hayday was lush with hostas and wildflowers and a dry streambed and waterfall, built by a budding landscape architect. Unfortunately, it had been neglected in recent years and had become overgrown with vines. And then the real estate agent said the magnolia blocked the view of (the back of) the house, so it had to go.

So, the now full-fledged landscape architect designed a patio and garden for the area and came to supervise the project. With the help of a bobcat, the magnolia was moved to another yard, the vines were torn out, and the soil was scraped and removed to prevent them from coming back. Pavers and a truckload of "minus" were delivered and applied. The granite rocks and gravel from the dry streambed and waterfall were saved and put back later. New plants were planted. It was beautiful. Too beautiful.

The curse on the door first became evident with the UPS driver. Chris was expecting a delivery, and when it didn't come in a week or two, she called the sender, reported it missing, and arranged for a second package to be sent. Another week went by and still no package. She went outside and walked completely around the house, which was no small feat, since one end was at the edge of a high stone wall. She found both packages hidden behind a bush next to the evil door. Evidently, the UPS driver thought he had found the right place to leave the second package, because the first one was there.

Traffic to the cursed door increased. Any tradesman coming to work on the house or any salesman was likely to be found knocking on that door. The boy scouts left their fliers on that doorknob. Chris started moving the patio furniture and the large flower pots to block the way onto the patio. People just walked around, stepping on the flowers planted along the edge. She moved the furniture and pots to block the door, but people moved them out of the way to get through. She bought a decorative pole and put it next to the beginning of the stone walk to the front door and hung the house numbers from it. Everybody ignored it.

Then came the event that caused Chris to stop thinking her town was full of the world's stupidest people, and start thinking the door was evil.

She invited a group of friends over for an evening. Some of them had been there before and some hadn't. She knew it would be dark when they arrived, so she turned on the outdoor lights. The parking area, stone walk, and front porch were well lighted, and the new patio was dark. Her friends started arriving. The first one came to the front door and she led her into the kitchen to choose between coffee and tea.

As they passed by the bedroom that was between the kitchen and the living room, she glanced through its window and realized there were several people standing on the new patio, silhouetted in the lights in the parking area. She faintly heard knocking on the evil door. Walking closer to the window, Chris saw her best friend, who had been to her house many times and up until now had always used the front door.

Now she knew why no one had made an offer on her house. The door had sucked them in and eaten their brains. They were left stupid, if they were left at all, and they had no remaining interest in buying this place with its chintzy front door that had no doorbell or welcome mat and never opened to their knocking.

A couple of days ago I promised to bury myself in a good book. I did indeed do that and have now risen, definitely not unchanged. (In spite of my rebel resistance to the sticker on the cover advertising it to be a life-changing book.)

Now I am pondering. Do I want to change my designated all-time favorite story? Yes and no.

Yes, because this book is that good.
No, because it is really only part of my favorite story, the gemstone to be placed in the gold setting of my favorite ring ... story.

Of all the fiction books in the world, this is the one I most recommend you read, and it is a stand-alone story. However, like a priceless gem, it will be more beautiful if it is viewed in a gold setting. Therefore, I recommend you read it after/along with reading several other books.

Immanuel's Veins, by Ted Dekker.

I bought it the first day it was out, but I waited to read it, for much the same reason I paused after reading the first page of The Hobbit. I realized that after I had read it, it would be read. I would never again be able to read it for the first time. The reviews for IV were so raving fanatic, I knew it was going to be really good.

My previous favorite fiction book was Black, by Ted Dekker. It isn't really a stand-alone book, since it stops in the middle of a cliffhanger, and continues on in Red. But it was my favorite because of one scene, the one where Thomas dives into the lake and meets Elyon.

Black, Red, White, and Green form the Circle series, and that story is truly a circle, but also The Circle was an organization in the story, a group of people known in the beginning as the Forest Guard, led by Thomas of Hunter. Black starts with Tom Hunter, who time/location travels to a different earth and becomes Thomas of Hunter. In Immanuel's Veins, he is known as Saint Thomas, the beast hunter.

So it's really all one story. There's a lot of reading to get all of this story, and Ted is probably adding to it as we speak ... read. Besides the four books in the Circle series, there are the six lost books, the Paradise books -- especially Showdown, Skin, and now Immanuel's Veins.

This broad, winding story seems to me now to have been lacking one thing, one facet of the gemstone in the gold ring. The scene in the lake provided one facet of the gem, the experience of being loved. Immanuel's Veins is the other side of the story, how it was/is to love. Together they flash the fiery glints of an exquisitely beautiful jewel in the light of life.