by Audrey Adams
Inside my closet is a portal to hell.
It looks exactly what I expected it to look like, very lava-forward, and the heat that emanates from it is like a blast from an oven door and not entirely unpleasant. At night there’s faint screaming from behind the door and what I have to assume is the gnashing of teeth. I sleep with the fan on high to cut through the radiant swelter. I lie still in the dark and wonder what’s become of my clothes, but I suppose that should be a low priority.
There’s a little platform just inside the door with a lever nearby clearly labeled UP and DOWN.
I tell my mother all of this over cereal in the morning.
“Maybe you should switch your trazodone,” she says.
“I don’t think that’s it.”
“Maybe just take an extra one.” She slides my little orange bottle next to the box of Grape-Nuts.
“I don’t think that’s how that works.”
“I couldn’t begin to know how portals work, sweetie.”
No, she couldn’t.
My sister comes by in the afternoon to borrow a sweater. I tell her I can’t help her because my closet is a portal to hell. I get up and open the door, and she stands beside me as we look into the yawning chasm below.
“It doesn’t seem good, does it?”
“No, I wouldn’t think so,” she replies.
By the third night I get very bored. I wake up covered in sweat, on account of the hellfire, my pajama top sticking to my skin. Pajamas are all I have left to wear. I still haven’t figured out the clothes thing. I walk over to the closet and push the lever just inside the door to DOWN, sending an empty platform on a rickety descent. I kind of wonder if something or someone down there will scramble onto it, and then I can pull the lever UP, and then the something or someone will be up here, and then I will at least be less bored.
When I pull the lever UP, the platform arrives just as empty as before. I go back to bed.
The next night I put a bowl of Grape-Nuts on the platform and push it DOWN, count to sixty a few times, and then pull it back UP to see the bowl empty. I don’t know what this means, and I don’t know if it even means anything, except that I have to assume that demons like Grape-Nuts. It’s disconcerting to have something so simple in common with demons. Again, it probably doesn’t mean anything.
I test the empty platform a few more times and each time it arrives at the top, once again, empty, and I grow more and more suspicious. For some reason I am gripped by the compelling conviction that maybe the platform is meant for me. Maybe I’m meant to go DOWN there into that roiling, fervid abyss instead of sitting UP here, sweating, peering at it all through the open door. Maybe I’d be less bored and restless about the whole thing if I did. But I don’t want to, so I send another bowl of cereal down and when it returns a few minutes later, I put the empty bowl in the dishwasher and go to bed.
I begin to have dreams about the closet and the portal to hell within it. I dream about taking a flying leap through the door, past the platform, and rocketing down into hellfire and torment and eternal misery and yada yada, the whole deal. I dream about riding the little platform all the way DOWN and being greeted by a bunch of cheering little imps who are so happy to see me because I remembered to bring the box of Grape-Nuts with me, and also I’ve brought trazodone, and they seem to like that. I dream about getting down there and my consciousness winking out of existence so there is just black nothingness, but it’s actually less boring than I pictured it.
In the morning I start taking my breakfast by the door of the closet, sending a bowl of cereal DOWN while I eat my own, and pulling the empty bowl back UP when I’m done. I have to do this routine fully nude, because my only pair of pajamas is in the washing machine each morning on account of the sweat. I figure I’m too far up for something or someone down there to see me, but anyway it’s not anything they haven’t seen before.
I put a Korean sheet mask on my face, because all the heat is really drying me out, and I decide to send one DOWN to share. It comes back up unopened and scorched at the edges. I guess demons aren’t really into self-care.
I experiment with other things on the platform. I send DOWN another face mask in case they just didn’t like that brand, but it again comes back smoldering. I send DOWN my vibrator and the platform returns empty, and I’m kind of annoyed because that was my only one and it was pretty expensive, but it’s good for the data I suppose. I determine that demons dislike: Korean face masks, empty notebooks, rubber ducks. Demons like: my vibrator, a hardback copy of Mary Oliver’s Devotions, Grape-Nuts. I keep a little chart of all this in the one empty notebook I have left that has not been set on fire.
By the sixth night I start getting upset. I am no longer amused by my experiments. I open the door to my closet and scream into the abyss WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME? And GIVE ME BACK MY CLOTHES! I chuck a whole box of Grape-Nuts in there and yell LEAVE ME ALONE. I’m crying but the arid heat means it evaporates almost instantly, and my inflamed cheeks are covered in salty, stinging tracks of nothing.
By the seventh morning I am very tired. The ambient sounds of screaming and crackling flames wakes me, as it does every morning. I eat my cereal by the platform, and I stare at it. I think I’m dehydrated from all the sweating and also the crying, so I drink a whole bottle of water and toss the empty, crinkled plastic into the chasm.
I’m starting to wonder about getting on the platform. I mean, I’m starting to seriously consider it. Maybe if I ride it all the way DOWN I can reach some kind of conclusion. Maybe I can make a deal with one of the devils for a pair of jeans or something. Maybe none of my dreams about it will be accurate, or maybe all of them will be, all at the same time.
I am suddenly, for the first time since this whole portal to hell thing began, very scared. I don’t want to go DOWN. I want to stay up here. I like these pajamas, after all, and the breakfast routine hasn’t been so bad. I want to keep sending my little offerings and let that be enough.
I swipe the salt from my cheeks. I go to my sister’s room and borrow a sweater to wear on top of my pajamas so I at least look a little presentable. Whatever something or someone I’m about to meet has been keeping me company, after all.
I step onto the platform and push the lever DOWN.
