A Funeral for the God of Doors

How it begins

Bela opened her shop and stepped into the day her husband left.

He stood beside the kitchen table, holding the blue suitcase. The kettle was boiling. On the windowsill, the basil plant still had leaves.

“No,” she said, and closed the door.

In the street behind her, a delivery man balanced a parcel against his knee.

“Bad morning?”

“Unexpectedly old.”

She tried the shop again.

Her husband looked up. “I wasn't sure how to tell you.”

“You managed the first time.”

Bela shut the door firmly and turned the key twice.

Across the market square, the butcher emerged from his cold room crying. A woman ran out of the post office carrying an unopened letter. The church bells began, stopped, then rang once more as if reconsidering.

On Bela's doorstep sat a small man in a coat made entirely of pockets. Every pocket was empty.

“He's dead,” the man said.

“Who?”

“The keeper of thresholds.”

Bela put her toolbox down.

She had repaired locks for forty years. She had found love letters, trapped mice, stolen coins, and one unfortunate snake inside doors. She had never found theology useful to the work.

“How do you know?”

The man held up a key. Its teeth were dissolving into fine gold dust.

“My name is Hesh. I was his attendant.”

“What killed him?”

“Being expected to let everyone leave without ever leaving himself.”

Behind Bela, the shop handle turned.

She moved away from it.

Hesh watched the door with the exhausted patience of someone who had already heard too many goodbyes.

“He needs a funeral,” he said.

Bela looked across the square. People were gathering around doors they had spent years learning not to open.

“Does he have family?”

“Everyone who has ever crossed a threshold.”

She picked up her toolbox.

“Then we had better start with a guest list and somewhere people can choose to stand outside.”