Wayne Batson - The Door Within

Well, where are they now, then? answered a blustery, skeptical second voice.

Maybe they dissolve after a few minutes.

Yeah, right! That’s way out there, Aidan. So the pots just went “Poof!” and vanished without a clue? Good one.

But I saw them. I touched one even. It must’ve ju- “Aidan, that you?” Grampin asked, snapping Aidan out of his dueling thoughts. He immediately realized that he had overflowed his bowl with cereal, spilling it all over the counter.

“Yeah, Grampin, what do you want? You need something to drink or something?”

“No, I need you to come here for a minute!” Grampin’s voice snapped like a whip.

Aidan stomped into the living room, expecting Grampin to scold him for spilling the cereal. If the old guy dares to lecture me, Aidan thought, he’ll get an earful back, and then some. Aidan didn’t get what he expected.

Grampin was sitting in his chair, but his posture was different. He sat, shoulders back, chest out, chin up-far from his normal slouch-slump. Blue eyes, though faded with age, gleamed from under his wiry white brows, and his stubbly jaw was set firmly. All together, he looked like an aging but still-proud army general. The serious look on his face softened as Aidan drew near.

“I’m sorry that your daddy was so hard on ye last night,” he said. “Didn’t believe ye about the scrolls, did he?”

“No,” Aidan whispered. He felt stunned. After festering all morning, he had tromped into the living room, walls up-poised for battle.

Grampin’s question smashed down the walls, and disarmed Aidan’s heart.

“Dad said I made it all up.”

“So I heard, Aidan, and again, I’m sorry. He was wrong to say those things.”

“No, Grampin, it’s okay. He wasn’t being that mean.”

“You’re missin’ my point, boy. Now listen. What I mean is that your daddy, smart as he is, was wrong to doubt you.”

Aidan stared.

Grampin smiled.

“I wanted to say something last night, but ye ran up to yer room ’fore I could make a peep. Then, I heard ye in the kitchen, so now here it is: Aidan, I believe you.”

Aidan gasped. “You do?”

Was Grampin serious or… senile? Aidan wasn’t sure, but having any adult agree with him felt pretty good.

“Heh, heh, heh… yes, sir, I do,” Grampin replied. His volume climbed excitedly as he spoke. “The clay pots, the scrolls, the new words on the pages, and most important, the story in the scrolls- I believe it all!”

Aidan thumped down into an easy chair near Grampin. His thoughts and feelings were so conflicted it was like having a battle going on in his head. He had been dying for someone to believe him about the scrolls, but he never expected his ally to be Grampin. This is the guy who ruined my life! Aidan thought. Why should I trust him?

And maybe time had finally caught up with him. Grampin’s face was so stretched and weathered, his arms and legs so thin and frail- maybe the years that had withered him physically had finally begun to diminish him mentally as well. Aidan stared hard at his grandfather for several silent moments.

“But, Grampin, Dad says it’s not true,” Aidan said finally. “And Mom doesn’t believe it either.”

“Yes, I know they didn’t-or maybe wouldn’t is a better word. For your parents, things just don’t appear out of thin air. You, on the other hand, you were open. In fact, I bet you were just waitin’ for something amazing to happen.”

“I was, Grampin. Lots of weird things have been happening to me-I was kinda expecting it.”

“See!”

“But, how come when we went back down there, the pots were gone?”

“I’m not sure, Aidan. Maybe your mom and dad talked you outta trusting yer heart. A little doubt can be poisonous to new faith.”

Aidan nodded. His father had made a pretty convincing case against the scrolls’ magically appearing. He was right, wasn’t he? Aidan wondered. Things really don’t appear out of thin air, do they?

“Look here, Aidan, I’ve been where your daddy’s at. There was a time, years ago, when I was as stubborn as an alley cat on a diving board.”

Aidan smiled. Then, Grampin leaned forward in his wheelchair and grew more serious. “I was a bitter young man then, Aidan. Mad at the world about my parents.”

“What happened to your parents?” Aidan asked.

“When I was sixteen, my mother got sick. It was an awful thing to watch her go like that. Muscles seizing up. Always in pain. My father died a year later. They said it was his heart, but I knew better. That man died of grief.”

“I’m sorry, Grampin.”

“I was too, Aidan. But I didn’t let it get me like it did my father. No, I threw myself into my job. I worked hard, but I guess people could always tell there was something wrong. Someone at the factory where I worked-guy named Kaleb Shipley, I remember-tried to tell me a story from the scrolls. Said it would help me understand the world better, but I didn’t want to hear a word. A whole lot a’ hooey, I told him. I just wasn’t ready then. It took me fifty years to get ready.

“But gettin’ old makes you look at things differently-bein’ closer to the end, I reckon. Your heart either gets so hard that you close up inside for good, or you start to wonderin’ if there’s more to life than what meets the eye. Well, it seemed to me that there just has to be more, so I started to wonder.

“Don’t get me wrong, Aidan, aside from my parents dying when I was young, I’ve really had a good life-met and married the finest woman in the world, raised a good family, had decent jobs. I had few complaints. Still, eighty-some-odd-years a’ fun in the sun on this giant spinning mud ball can’t be all there is. I mean, what’s the point of it all? Is everybody jest goin’ through the motions a’ life until, one day, life runs out? And what really worried me was, what happens after?”

Grampin was speaking to Aidan eye-to-eye, man-to-man about deep, meaningful things-it felt so good to be treated as valuable, even as an equal. Aidan leaned forward; he wanted to hear more. “What happened?”

“Well,” Grampin continued, “it was about that time that some scrolls showed up in my library. And there they were, the answers to all of my questions. Best dang thing that ever happened to me!”

Grampin leaned back in his wheelchair and a joyful grin widened on his stubbly face. He began to laugh, almost a cackle. “Heh, heh, heh.”

“What’s so funny, Grampin?”

“Well, you probably don’t remember, but when you were just a little squirt and came to visit with yer Grandma and me, I used to tell you bedtime stories. You sat on my bed in your blue footy pajamas and munched gingerbread cookies, and I used to act out the stories with different accents and voices, heh, heh.”

“Sure, Grampin, I remember. So what’s so funny?”

“Those stories, Aidan, every one of them, came right out of the scrolls! Drove yer daddy nuts, that I was fillin’ your head with such nonsense.”

“Really?” Aidan laughed. Grampin’s mood was contagious, but Aidan was still skeptical. “I didn’t recognize the stories when I read my scrolls.”

“That was ten or eleven years ago, Aidan. And I suspect that a person receives the scrolls they need. Besides, if the story is no more meaningful to you than bedtime entertainment, it fades from yer memory.”

The clock’s ticking grew loud. Aidan was silent. But his mind was like a beehive that had just been hit with a stone. Jubilant thoughtsI was right! The scrolls are real! I knew it! Wait’ll I tell Robby! – careened around and crashed into demanding rebuttals and urgent questions. The latter were piling up and could not be ignored.

“Grampin, Dad said that lots of people have the story from the scrolls, that it’s even in bookstores-is that true?”