I decided to take a walk in the woods one day and as I was walking through the dark underbrush I came across a red door. The door came out of the ground and stood without a frame or hinges. It stood taller than me in height and wider than me in width. It was the color of blood on your finger tip had it been pricked on a cold day and walking around it I knew that the thing inside, was for me. How strange to find such a well made door so far out in the woods. I walked up to the door and not knowing what to do, decided I should knock. Three knocks I knocked, the silver bracelet my grandmother had given me shining and reflecting. When the echoes of my knocks and stopped there was nothing but silence. I waited and waited but nothing happened. I walked around the door to the other side and looked up at it as I had before. This door, I said to myself, must lead to a place, but where? I imagined it must be a very colorful place for it was a very colorful door. I decided I would go home and think about what I should do about the most magnificent and fortunate discovery.

That night while I lie awake thinking about my door I wondered if anyone else had found it wandering through the woods as I had been. I wondered if anyone else had been through the door before and could tell me what was on the other side, if anything at all. I woke up early that morning and went outside hoping the chilled air would help me decide what I should do. When I turned to look at my house I saw to my horror that the front door was the same deep red as my door in the forest. This couldn't be. Someone must have followed me into the woods and was now playing a terrible joke. I immediately went to the shed and retrieved a bucket of dark brown paint to cover the entrance. The Baker's assistant, on a run for supplies, looked at my feverish painting and continued at his duty without acknowledging my work of layering and cover-up.  I finished the job before any of my family had awoken and hoped it wouldn't be touched before fully dry. None of them knew anything was different besides the faint smell of paint mixed with the morning cooking.

"And what of your adventures today, my son," asked father? My mother gave me a smile as she looked over her mixing bowl. "Can I go play by the edge of the woods after school?" "Oh, you be careful by the woods," my mother proclaimed. "There are many dangerous things one can be hurt on near the forest." "Nonsense," my father said. "Let him discover what is to be discovered inside the wood. Just remember," he said. "Once you go in, make sure you are always able find your way out."

After breakfast I decided I would go to my friend Pete's house and ask him into the woods. When Pete came to the door I pulled him aside and with great caution whispered into his ear. "I have found a door in the darkness, a red door in the wood." He looked at me and said, "A door to what?" "That, I said, is what today we will discover."

I sat at my desk and wondered so loud I thought the teacher would rap my knuckles. I could see through the window the forest and couldn't help but imagine my door. Was it there, peaking out through the branches? Could I see it now, glowing, reflecting the light? I looked at Pete who watched as the words were scrawled across the blackboard in chalky white. The girl behind me rolled her pencil off the desk and it caught under my foot. I picked it up, glanced at her smile and then used it to draw my door until the bell sounded.

Pete and I walked slowly into the wood following the path I walked before, the twists and turns taking us deeper into the unknown. "Where is it," asked Pete? "It's around here somewhere," I said, none to sure. For the path I took before seemed straighter and easier than the path we were on now, even though many of the markers along the way were the same. A drop of red here on a sage and there, a smear of that deepening color on the side of a tree. When I touched it before had it just been set to dry? Had I unknowingly carried it with me, giving subtle hints to its place in the heart of the forest? I had all but given up in finding it again. Maybe it's for the best...Maybe, I was never meant to see what was on the other side. Just then, through the top of a large brier, I caught a glimpse of scarlet. There it is, I pointed and the two of us crawled through a tiny opening into the clearing. It was in the middle of the glade. There, with light coming through the trees, a Fallen Angel's slide, was my door.

I walked so gently towards the door and put my ear against it trying to hear what was inside. I wanted a clue as to what I would find so I wouldn't be surprised and I wouldn't be scared. "I think I've heard about a door like this, said Pete and I don't know if it's a good idea for you to go through." My hand was already reaching for the knob and I was saying, "I don't think I have a choice." As I turned the knob all I could hear was the beating of my own heart and the creaking as the door fell open. I looked through to the other side and my right foot lifted off the ground. My weight doubling as each moment passed and then in reverse. Finally I came through to the other side and all I could see was an old man sitting in a rocking chair and beyond him a sight I had never seen before and have never seen since. Back and forth he moved never looking up. I walked closer to him watching his wrinkled skin absorb a distant firelight. A bracelet very similar to mine, though tarnished from wear dangled from his wrist and just as I was about to touch him he looked up at me. His resilient gaze met mine and I was frozen. Dark eyes filled my head with an understanding of what I had done and where I had now been. He said only one thing to me after what felt like eternity. I can't be sure if Pete followed behind and if he did he never told me what he saw.  When I left I closed that door behind me and didn't return to the woods for a very long time. Never went back to the door and now I try and only think about it when I am telling someone like you.

Oh, what did the man say, you ask? Where did the door lead? Well, all I can say is the door lead to that man in the wooden rocking chair and more. With my eyes cast down from the starlight brilliance beyond he said something that I couldn't understand then and don't fully understand now.  I've remembered it only in part and of that, here is the end, "Don't decide too quickly next time you have to choose. Many, many years ago when I was little older than you, I decided to walk through my door. The color of my door was blue."