The Agoraphobe

There was only one rule: don’t open the door.

It was a rule that followed him everywhere he ever went.

It followed him upstairs. It followed him downstairs. It followed him to the bathroom.

It followed him to his writing desk and it was there when he ordered groceries and when he attached those painstaking delivery notes.

It snooped over his shoulders when he checked his pointless dating profiles, and when he found all his DMs read but unanswered.

The rule held him when he looked for notifications on his social media, and when he inevitably found none….

But he was never lonely, because the rule climbed into bed with him each night and it clung to his back when he woke in the cold mornings.

And he never, ever doubted the rule— not even when he yearned to stretch his legs and feel the gaze of a human face.

No, even then, the rule held strong. Because he’d peek out his window and see the crushing dark or wince at the blinding light and feel the galloping need for a safe place.

He’d cower safe from the very thought of cracking the door— he’d retreat into the trembling safety of his own prison.

There were days where he knew that his life was a tenantless shell.

Days where he could not help fidgeting like a raccoon in a cramped cage.

Then he hated his empty house as much as he feared leaving it.

But stepping out into the naked wilds of the world beyond his door?

Unthinkable.

Impossible.

There was no way out.

Wedged between his frantic need and his immovable fear, all he could do was linger and hate it.

*

Then one day the delivery orders stopped.