Short Story – The Door

When I woke up in the morning, I was pretty certain that meant I was no longer asleep. That was what ‘waking up’ usually amounted to. But the events of the day led me to believe such a thing was not always so.

To begin with, nothing had been out of order. Everything had been as it always is. Wake up, get dressed, grab a cereal bar and dash out the door to get to work. The bus had been running late, but that wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary. Work was boring as usual, answering emails to the sound of phones being left to ring and the clack of fake nails on keyboards. 

It was when I left work at lunch to go to my favourite cafe to get a sandwich that things started to go weirdly. I have never been the kind of person to investigate things that go wrong, I usually leave things to other people. Not that I generally like to admit it, but I often turn a blind eye to things. For example, if I see someone throw an empty plastic bottle onto the street? I’ll pretend I didn’t see, safe in the knowledge that someone else will see it eventually and they will pick it up. But what was so strange about this, was that no one else did seem to see it.

It’s not like it was hard to see. A seven foot high shimmering doorway, in the middle of a busy pavement. People were walking on either side of it, some even walking straight through it, but not once did someone look up from their phone, or spare a second glance at the brilliance of the light it was emitting. Curiously, I walked up to it, a low buzzing getting louder in my ears as I grew closer. When I stood in front of it, I slowly reached a hand out, feeling a gentle heat radiating from it. A woman walked past me, looking at me strangely as she did so. Could she not see anything? Could anyone? Was I the only person here seeing this doorway, and everyone else was just seeing a strange lady stood still in the middle of the street, holding her hand out to something that wasn’t there?

I’m not sure whether it was curiosity or a deeper urge that made me step forwards, putting one foot through the doorway, my body following behind. The shimmering passed over me, both warming me and leaving me with a chill as I stepped through. I turned and looked at the doorway from the other side, frowning at it. Nothing had happened. Was I simply imagining it? Hallucinating?

I turned away from the door, my eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I stared down at the ground, trying to rationalise what was happening. Maybe I had hit my head at some point, and couldn’t remember it because of a head injury I had sustained. Almost subconsciously, my hand reached up to the back of my head, and gently patted my hair. I couldn’t feel any tenderness, or any bumps. The sandwich I promised myself this morning would make everything better, I concluded, and looked up.

The sight I saw made me gasp. There were no cars or buses on the road, but instead, there were horses pulling carriages and people on bicycles trying to avoid them. The buildings were the same, and yet, they were different. The superstore was a hotel, and a fancy one by the look of it. My beloved cafe was what looked like a watch repair shop. The people walking around me were dressed like they were all part of a reenactment ground, and yet, they carried mobile phones. A woman in a full skirt, with countless layers of petticoats, carrying a parasol over her shoulder, and talking on the phone? It’s a strange sight.

I turned to face the door that still shone, that these people also seemed unable to see. I stepped back through, and looked around at the town I knew, the sound of car horns filling my ears. I stepped through again, and watched a bicycle swerve around a pile of horse manure. I stepped back through, keeping my eyes on one woman, a lady with blonde hair piled on top of her head, a small pink hat precariously placed on top, and a phone to her ear. On the other side, my side, she was still there, walking past me, but her hair was in a ponytail and she was wearing a tracksuit, rather than a flouncy dress.

I had to be dreaming. Or dead. Or close to dying. Something other than awake, perfectly lucid, and in my right mind. But, then again, if I was dreaming, dying, or dead, surely nothing I do matters? Couldn’t people who dreamt lucidly control what happened? Did that not mean I could fly, or something? 

I tried it on the side I knew, jumping and imagining the ground falling away beneath me as I soared into the sky, but nothing happened other than a few people giving me some strange looks. I stepped through the door, to the strange side, and tried again, jumping. It took me a moment to realise my feet hadn’t come back into contact with the floor. I looked down. My heels, the only shoes I owned that were any kind of appropriate for work, were floating a few inches away from the ground. I kicked my feet, and moved higher, like I was swimming to the surface from the bottom of a pool. 

People looked up as I floated above them. I had a brief moment of panic when I remembered I was wearing a skirt, and people would be able to see up it, but I shook off my concerns. I was in a dream, obviously. How else would I be flying? What did I care if some made up people inside my head see up my skirt?

I started thinking of things I might be able to do in this strange dreamscape I found myself in. I had never been able to control my dreams before, this was an entirely new situation for me. I stopped moving for a moment, flying high above the tallest building in the city, and found myself falling until I started kicking my legs again. The air itself seemed to react like water, and I like a swimmer. Water. The opposite of water was fire. I frowned slightly, thinking of a candle, and how I had always wished someone would invent a candle you could light by snapping your fingers. I lifted my fingers in front of me and snapped them, hoping for a small spark, or even a little flame, like a match, to hover over one of my fingers.

The air seemed to pull itself out of my lungs as the tops of the buildings below me all instantaneously caught ablaze, beginning like candles, and quickly becoming devoured by oranges and heat. People below me screamed, and I panicked. Even in a dream world, I couldn’t become a murderous super-person. I imagined water – rain, or a hose, to put out the flames. Nothing happened for a moment, and I felt dread in my stomach that I wouldn’t be able to stop what I started, when an icy coldness hit me, and I was drenched from head to toe. A sheet of water, getting bigger by the second, fell from the sky onto the city. The fires were put out, sure, but I watched helplessly as horses panicked, people lost their footing, and several heads went under and didn’t resurface.

A whooshing sound caught my attention, and I turned to watch the arrival of someone else floating in the sky, someone who seemed to be well versed with flying. He was looking directly at me, and at first, I thought he might be coming to help me, but then he got close enough for me to look at his face. He was mad. He was mad at me. 

A blast of light skimmed my body, the force pushing me backwards through the air. I gaped at the man, wondering why he would do such a thing as attack me, but with a glance at the destruction below me, I couldn’t really blame him. Another stream of light, and I started kicking my legs, angling my body down, towards the ground, running from the danger I had brought on myself.

I had one plan. No one seemed to be able to see the door but me, so if I went through it, maybe I would wake up, or at least, no one from this side of the door would be able to follow me through. Blasts sent my way from the flying man propelled me on, one of them singeing the hair on my arm as it brushed past me. I hit the water flooding the ground before I reached the door, but continued swimming. The motion was the same, I just could no longer breathe. Water burned my eyes as I opened them, looking around, and I saw the door immediately, it’s light showing me the way through my blurred, watery vision. 

I dove through the door like I was learning to swim underwater and had to swim through a hula hoop, held by an instructor. On the other side, I fell to the floor, spluttering and dripping water. People looked down at me, but walked on, as I would if I saw such a thing. Normal people. Wearing normal clothes, in my normal city, with my normal cafe across the street. I stood up, grimacing at my clothes clinging to my skin, and looked down at my arm. My hair, singed off from a burst of light, from a flying man in the sky. 

It had to have been a dream. And yet, I got a call later that afternoon from work, and I had to explain that I had felt unwell and had gone home instead. I woke up the next morning to find my still wet clothes in the bath, waiting for me to wring them out, or put them in the washing machine and let that wring them out for me. I walked down that same street the next day, and the door was still there, glimmering and beckoning me forward, begging me to step through, but I looked away, pretended I couldn’t see it. 

I had spent only a few minutes in a world I could control, and I had become the villain immediately. Whether or not it was a premonition, or it said something about me, or was simply a hallucination my mind was showing me, I would never go near that door again.

And done!

The idea for this story is based loosely on a dream I had, wherein I was normal me, but could step through these shimmering doors I would randomly see, and on the other side, I would have superpowers.

I'm not going to lie, my superpowers were specifically the fact that on the other side I was Spider-Man, but still.

That's all for now...

Bye!

Movie Review – Infinate – What happens when a man realises that his hallucinations are actually memories from past lives?

I sometimes spend ages trying to decide what movie to watch. I look at movie description after movie description, skip from genre to genre, simply trying to find something that I feel like watching.

Of course, sometimes I will simply click on the first movie I find, and watch that one. That was today's case. So, let me introduce today's movie, and then we can get into my review!

Evan McCauley has skills he never learned and memories of places he has never visited. Self-medicated and on the brink of a mental breakdown, a secret group that call themselves "Infinites" come to his rescue, revealing that his memories are real.

Watch here!

My Review!

Background checks are making it impossible for Evan McCauley to get a job. He has violent behaviour in his past, something he might be able to explain, but that employers cannot risk. On top of that, he is suffering from schizophrenia, and his only way of controlling it is medication he gets as part of deals. When he forges a katana, the whole deal goes badly, and he ends up arrested, only to be broken out by someone after an interrogation that could not possibly have been carried out by someone working for the law.

Evan finds himself among a group called the Infinites, people who are reincarnated when they die, and whom all remember their past lives. But, Evan’s life thus far has caused some kind of block in his memory, stopping him from remembering anything from his past lives. All he gets are glimpses, visions that were the cause of his schizophrenia diagnosis in the first place. The Infinates are desperate, though. They have an enemy, the Nihilists, who, although they are also Infinites, do not believe they come back to life for a reason, and who simply want it all to be over. Their solution? If you destroy everything, there is nothing to return to. Their ‘bomb’, as it were, is something called the Egg, which Evan stole from them in his previous life. But, Evan hid the Egg before he died, and without any of his memories, no one knows where the Egg is.

Working to try and find the Egg before Bathurst, the leader of the Nihilists, can get to Evan becomes a mission, retraining every aspect of Evan’s body so that his mind may remember. This film has its fair share of action scenes, and the whole concept is certainly an intriguing one. The Infinites are not reborn as the same person each time, but rather as the same soul, bouncing between different people. They grow up in different countries, in different situations, in different families each time they come back, and it is only when they reach 14 years old that they remember who they are, and their past lives. While this was interesting, I couldn’t see any real reason for their coming back to life. Some believed they were blessed with this, that they had a purpose, and that each life would teach them something different, something that would be important in the future, but there didn’t seem to be anything they had to fix, or work to make better. Their goal, as it were, seemed unclear.

There are definitely some plot holes in this film. I will not list them, as they will give away major points of the plot, but the hiding place of the Egg, while at first not entirely obvious in the movie, would surely have been the only possible explanation, should the characters be real. Come to think of it, it was not even hidden all that well. One of the redeeming factors, though, was that the past life Evan was played by Dylan O’Brien, so whenever we get a glimpse back at that life, and slowly learn about the Egg and Evan’s role in finding and hiding it, we get to spend some time with Dylan O’Brien as well.

This isn’t the kind of film you will need to watch with entirely rapt attention. It is not difficult to keep up with, or one that is difficult to understand, and I do sometimes have trouble keeping up with action films. However, there are gaping holes in the plot, some that might have been closed up by a few additional sentences of dialogue, and some that seem impossible to close with the way the story went. If you are after a science-fiction film with some scenes of intense action and an interesting premise, definitely check this one out. Although, do not expect a story masterpiece. The visuals are good, but the story makes it a film you might put on in the background, rather than pay your full attention to.

And done!

I was a bit wary about writing this review, because I usually try to keep all my reviews positive, but there were some things I really couldn't help but mention, and I figured only posting wholly positive reviews doesn't give an entirely rounded sense of me as a reviewer. Not everything can be perfect.

That's all for now...

Bye!

A Review – Stalin's Door by John St.Clair

I entered a giveaway for this book, because it has been one of those I have been wanting to read for ages, and I keep seeing it on Twitter. I did not win the giveaway, but the author kindly reduced the price of this book for a short period of time after the giveaway, so those who didn't win could get it anyway. I still count that as a win.

I read this book in that weird time between Christmas and New Year, where you have no idea what day it is, or what to do, or whether to wear pyjamas all day, or if you can be bothered to shower. Obviously, this post was ready much sooner than I actually posted it.

Let me introduce the book, and then I will get into my review!

In the dangerous time of Russia’s Great Terror, a knock on the door late at night could mean only one thing!

Moscow, 1937. As mortal fear engulfs the capital city, a singular man cements his lethal grip of absolute power over an entire nation. Accusations, mass arrests, executions, and deportations become de rigueur. Stalin’s cult of personality is so fearsome, that even a simple question could get you killed—or worse. Stalin’s dreaded secret police, the NKVD, would pit neighbor against neighbor in the insatiable hunt for the spies and saboteurs which threaten the supreme leader’s tyranny. The crisis will irrecoverably overwhelm the body politic—just on the eve of World War II!

Stalin’s Door is the unforgettable story of three extraordinary individuals who lived during the time of Russia’s Great Terror. They share a terrible fate which will forever intertwine their lives. Zhenya is the strong young daughter of an important government official, who is growing up fast in a privileged government enclave. Sava is a devoted husband, unceremoniously dismissed from the Soviet Navy, who considers a new opportunity. Lera is a wise grandmother who bears a crucial responsibility, while forced into exile in the outland of Siberia.

All will discover the heinous secret of Stalin’s Door!

Amazon UK • Amazon US

My Review!

Zhenya is a young girl when her father receives a promotion and her family moves to an apartment in the House on the Embankment. There are some strange things about the place, like the fact that the furniture is nailed to the floor, but Zhenya doesn’t care about things like that. Instead, she focuses on her friendship with Zina and working at being the best Young Pioneer she possibly could. 

Sara’s career came to an abrupt end when he was dismissed from the Soviet Navy, but another option presented itself. To join the NKVD would be a big change, but it was an opportunity that had been presented to him, and his choices seemed limited. With his wife, Lera, he finds himself moving to the House on the Embankment, and his duties are something he could not have foreseen.

Lera is a supporting wife to Sara, following where his career change takes him. When circumstances change, she is the one to step up and take control, and she excels at it. Thinking quickly under pressure is a skill that proves useful, but there are some things you simply could not think your way out of. 

Three different people, all tied together in one way or another. This book tells all three stories, and slowly, brings the characters together. It does not, however, flip back and forth between the characters. We begin with Zhenya, until Sara takes over the story. At a point, Lera then takes it over. The change in characters is prevalent, for Zhenya is very young for the majority of this novel, and there are things that would not have made sense, or been explained, without the perspective of an older generation, one who understood the workings of the world, and who had knowledge Zhenya did not.

I was unaware of what the title, Stalin’s Door, actually referred to when I picked up this book. While I studied this time period for a history exam, my studies were of vague details, spanning a wide time period, and I did not go in-depth to certain subjects or years. I had never heard of the House on the Embankment before, and I only had a vague sense of knowledge about some of the parts of this novel. This did not hinder my reading at all. You do not have to know Russian history to enjoy this novel, for the author explains everything wonderfully. You can easily read this book and come away with more knowledge than you had before. 

I adored Zhenya and Lera, for they were both wonderful characters. Sara’s perspective is, unfortunately, not as long as Zhenya’s or Lera’s, so we did not get as much time to properly get to know him in this book. Both Zhenya and Lera are incredibly brave, especially considering everything that happens to them both. The House on the Embankment seems to be the beginning for all the characters, and once they have lived there, their story really begins. I do not want to talk too much about some of the aspects of this novel, as I would be giving away too much of the story to even bring some things up, but the author has made this time period come back to life. You feel like you are in Russia yourself, alongside these characters. Another thing is that the events that occur in this novel actually happened, and people went through these things. To think about it, about people suffering as some do in this book, is enough to bring tears to your eyes, and make you feel incredibly thankful for even just the basic necessities of life.

Something I really liked was that things such as Russian names were written as they would actually be used. People did not simply have their first name and then their surname, they were addressed differently in different circumstances, and by different people. While I do not wholly understand it (there is an author’s note at the beginning explaining it, but I was too excited to start reading to actually study it properly) it wasn’t too difficult to keep up, and I always knew who was being addressed, even if I didn’t properly know the intricacies of the names. This is a detail that I am happy was included, as it immerses you in the story even more.

If you have any interest in Russian history at all, this is a book you should read! It puts you in the story, so you can watch the events happen, rather than simply reading about it. I read this book two weeks after buying it, but I wish I had started reading it straight away, because then I would’ve have two extra weeks of having read this fabulous book!

And done!

I have absolutely nothing to say down here, because I'm tired and can't think of anything other than 'why did I decide I was going to have weird little conversations with myself at the end of all my posts?'

Anyway.

That's all for now...

Bye!