The Whole World is Watching

There you are. Yes, you with your Converse that never go out of style. Your hair that falls like a wedding veil you never got to wear around your face, shielding innocence that never existed. The blue light penetrates your glasses, as if your eyes are revealing a relationship with modern technology that should remain private. You sit, listening to the wheezing sounds your dad makes. A medically induced coma is what the doctor called it when he explained the situation to you, along with the expensive details of the procedures he would need to save his life.

Procedures you can’t afford. That is clear when you open your mobile banking app and check your balance. O.47 cents. That’s all you have to your name until payday, but even then, every dollar you make goes to bills and necessities. How will you get the money to pay for your dad’s medical bills? If only you’d taken your writing more seriously. Finished your book earlier. Found a literary agent earlier. Maybe you would be somewhere right now. With your dad. Instead, you’re feeling overwhelmed, so you decide to take a walk. You can’t take the wheezing sounds anymore. You can’t take the chilly, artificial air coming from dusty vents in a room that is only clean because it’s completely white.

The hospital is quiet at this time of night. The only sound is the random beeping of machines in the rooms you pass and your footsteps on tile so old and worn that not even a mop and the world’s best cleaner could fix it. There’s no one around. Day shift left to live their lives while yours falls apart inside four tiny walls. You see the elevator. It’s the same elevator you’ve used for weeks. You step inside and click the button. The doors close, and the normal quiet gets interrupted by elevator music you’ve never heard before because the elevators here don’t have music. But now you’re not so sure. You watch the floors pass by with little dings: 3…2…1…

The elevator doesn’t stop for you. It keeps going, but the counter now shows a different symbol. You’re not sure what it is, but if you had to guess, you’d say it looks like a pixelated Earth. After several dings, the elevator stops and the doors open, revealing a large, elaborately designed lobby with red carpets and dark, chocolate-brown accents and furniture. In the center of the room is a large desk with a faceless person behind it. Doors line the walls, numbered like hotel rooms. You think there has to be some mistake, so you go to press the button on the elevator to take you back up to the first floor. Clearly, you don’t belong here.

The button is gone. You wait for the doors to close, but they don’t. You figure that you might as well ask the faceless person where you are and get escorted out before you get in trouble for being in an unauthorized area. As you approach the desk, you realize that the faceless person isn’t necessarily faceless, but you can’t describe what you’re looking at. Whatever it is, she’s disturbingly beautiful, like a large oak tree cut in half among an intact forest so that a power line doesn’t get knocked down.

“There you are.” The woman stated as she typed on a computer that didn’t look like it was from this time. “You’re late for your appointment.”

“Appointment?”

“Yes. It was five minutes ago.”

The woman points toward a door to the left. It is the only door in the entire lobby that isn't numbered. You slowly approach it, wondering when you have scheduled an appointment and what it was for. You knock, and the door opens. The room isn’t as big or as extravagant as you expected. A man sits at the desk in front of large windows that show nothing but darkness behind them. “Hello there,” he says. His voice sounds musical, like coming home after years without seeing your family. He motions for you to sit, so you do.

“I’m not sure why I’m here,” you say.

“You’re here because you have an appointment.”

“An appointment for what?”

“Destiny.”

You laugh at his poetry and sit back in the chair. You’ve never been one for the woo-woo type. He sits back in his chair too, mirroring you.

“I know that you have been struggling to find success in your writing career.” He says. This comment interests you, and he can tell. You stare at him, waiting for him to continue. He does.

“I have watched you the past several weeks. I know your situation. I can help you.”

“How can you help me?” He points his long, skeleton-like finger into the air, an ah-ha expression crossing his face, darkened by the room's candlelight.

“That’s the magic question that I wanted to hear.” The man stands up and starts pacing from one window to the other. “I have resources at my disposal. I can get you a literary agent, a publishing company, fans, movie deals…you name what you want, and I can make it happen.”

Your heart flutters at the images that cross your mind. Images of book deals and signings, movie premieres, money to spend on whatever you want, and help with your dad's medical expenses. Still, you realize it seems too good to be true, so you decide to challenge him.

“All of those things take time, and that’s not really something I have right now.” You let the words sink in. He stops to look out one of the windows.

“I don’t think you understand me when I say I have resources,” He says, his voice small but concrete. You realize that you believe him. You believe he could help you. You believe he could get you everything you’ve been wanting in life, everything you’ve worked hard for—

“—there’s just one thing you should know first.” There it was. You roll your eyes, remembering that there’s always a catch. That’s something you’ve known forever: nothing is free.

“How much money do you want?” You ask, annoyed.

“No, I don’t want or need your money.” The man turns to look at you. “What I want is for you to retrieve something for me. It’s locked away in one of these rooms. It’s what I’ll need to help you.”

You look at him, purposely not hiding what you’re thinking from crossing your face. “You need me to get something for you? Why me?”

The man gives you a large, warm smile. “Do you remember that moment when you said you wanted to be a writer?” He asks you, and suddenly you’re swept back to a memory you hadn’t thought about in years. Little you reading every book you could and deciding that there was no way you could live in a silent world where no one knew your voice. You said you wanted to be a writer. You wanted to be an author. You wanted to share your worlds with people so that maybe, one day, you’d inspire someone the way that you’ve been inspired.

“Yes, I remember,” you choke up a little as you always do when you think about everything you’ve wanted to achieve but haven’t yet.

“It’s important for you to go get me what I need. That is my payment.” He approaches you and looks you in the eyes. “I won’t lie to you. It’s a dangerous journey. To make it would mean that you would say goodbye to the person you are now because when you come back, this you will not exist anymore.”

A smile creeps along your mind at his words. You highly doubt that any object in one of these rooms could change you the way that he describes. It’s not the errand that will completely change you but the result of that errand. This man promised to change your life, so of course you’ll change.

You stand, having made your decision. “What does it look like?”

The man hands you a large skeleton key unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Its handle mirrors the pixelated earth symbol from the elevator. “You’ll know when you see it. It will be in room 314.”

You nod, taking the key. As you start to turn, his hand gently grasps your arm and stops you. “There’s just one more thing…”

You turn back. His eyes are like windows to the universe, dark with tiny speckles of stars along the iris. You blink, sure you’re seeing the reflection of candlelight.

“That is my payment, but there is also a consequence you should know about.”

“What is it?” You ask, relaxing into his grip.

“My help does come at a price. I can help you have a successful life, but it will cost somebody else’s theirs. It’s your choice.”

Is it a choice, though? You have forty-seven cents to your name. Your bills take up most of your pay. You’ve spent years trying to get literary agents to notice you.

It’s not like he’s asking you to kill someone or chop off a limb. He isn’t even asking you for money. All he wants is for you to go get him something that he needs. It’s probably an address book so he can find his resources. You stay silent for a moment, confused and wondering how dangerous something behind one of these doors can be. After all, he isn’t dangerous, right?

You turn the words over in your mind. Could you live with that? Could you live with knowing your success caused someone else’s downfall? You think about all your favorite authors, singers, celebrities, and even the ones you don’t like or know.

Then you think about the billionaires who rose to the top by exploiting people at the bottom and scoff internally. Why do you care if a billionaire loses their company? All the workers are better off anyway.

You accept the key and leave the office. The woman at the counter points down the hall, and you follow her direction. The hallway stretches for what seems like miles. Eventually, the lobby disappears from sight, and the walls and ceiling grow bigger, with doors hundreds of feet high. It feels like a fever dream to you until finally…Room 314.

You slide the skeleton key into the door and hear the lock click open. The door creaks open, and you stare into the room. A cold chill creeps through your veins like the artificial chill of your father’s hospital room, but your skin stays smooth, without goosebumps. Your heart beats faster, and your thoughts slow. Tears blanket your eyes as you choke on everything you’ve ever thought you knew.

You calmly close your eyes and take a deep breath. Then you close the door and silently walk back to the lobby. The lady behind the counter turns toward you as you approach, and you stop in your tracks. Her face. You can see her face, and it’s beautiful and grotesque at the same time, like a human whose DNA has been experimented on by serpents. She smiles at you knowingly. You don’t have time to decide whether to smile back when the office door opens and you enter again.

“Have you retrieved what I need?” The man asks you, motioning for you to sit. You don’t. You stay standing in the center of the room, frozen. Changed. You nod.

“I opened the door and looked inside.” You say, feeling like the smallest thing in the room's universe.

“Can you describe what you saw?”

You try. You try so hard, but there are no words in any human language that could perfectly, or even imperfectly, portray what was inside Room 314. It was a room no human should ever enter. A room humanity didn’t belong in, except now you have entered. You have seen. You know the unknowable.

You choke, which is somehow an acceptable answer. The man nods in approval.

“Can you accept what you saw?” He asks you. Still unable to speak, you nod, feeling the wetness in your eyes resist the swirling air around you. He acknowledges your answer and motions toward the door where the elevator sits waiting for you.

“You may leave now,” the man says, giving you a final warm smile. “I hope that you receive everything you want in life.”

“Thank you.” With that, you leave. The elevator doors open. You step inside and press the button. The elevator rises, this time with no music. Just the small dings of dread and isolation as it passes each floor. Finally, the elevator stops and opens on the first floor. The doors open to a lively lobby. The sunlight pours through the windows. Cell phones buzz and receptionists take phone calls. A mother consoles her sick child who doesn’t want to wear the face mask despite her uncontrollable coughing.

You exit the elevator and take a deep breath. Your phone buzzes. It buzzes again. It constantly buzzes. The noise makes your ears itch. It gives you shivers down your spine and makes your brain vibrate along with it. You look at your notifications. Your literary agent calls about scheduling your book tour. Articles about publishing companies fighting to work with you are circling the internet. Bookstore sales have skyrocketed. People are arguing on their blogs about what you meant when you compared the antagonist to a dragon. You check your bank account.

$2,432,698.47.

Your breath catches in your throat. The phone keeps buzzing. Media outlets are begging for a quote. Talk shows are spamming you, trying to get an interview. Everything you’ve ever wanted is happening right now. Everything you’ve ever wanted has been achieved. You have to tell your dad.

You turn around and get back into the elevator, impatiently waiting for it to reach the third floor. As soon as the doors open, you fly into the hall, almost knocking over a group of nurses chatting about a medical chart. You don’t stop to apologize.

Then you see it: Room 314.

You stop. Your dad’s room is 314. It’s such a small door.

You approach it, feeling the ice in your veins grow colder, and your heart empty itself into a world never meant to be seen by human eyes. The nurses inside cover your father’s body. The machines are silent, and the room smells like death and disease. When they see you, their eyes show the deepest sympathy and pity.

The doctor pulls you aside and explains that your dad mysteriously died overnight shortly after you left. They don’t know what happened. There is no medical answer. Sometimes, these things just happen.

You sit with him for hours, unable to tell him about your sudden success as a writer. The success he always knew you were capable of; always wanted to see you become. You continued to sit. The setting changed. Time moved on and years went by, but there you were: still sitting. Still writing. Trying to find ways to describe what you saw in that room all those years ago. Trying to put into words the faceless woman you can only describe inside your mind, or the man who promised the world by taking the only world you had left.

People grew obsessed with your work. They were inspired. They became authors, too. They paid to meet you. They wanted your autographs and your keepsakes. Stores couldn’t keep your merchandise on the shelves. But the more they viewed you as a literary genius, the more you viewed yourself as a literary fraud. You sold the only person you valued for a life you thought would bring you value. Now you’re left interacting with a world that loves you through a shower curtain, never able to fully enjoy life past the memory of Room 314.