The Beginning

“Taylor? Taylor Bradford?” a voice called from behind the counter, with non-dissimulated boredom.

Taylor fumbled with the paperwork and rushed to the counter to finish registering for classes before the four o’clock deadline. The clerk handled the documents absentmindedly, while she watched the clock and switched to a more leisurely mindset in anticipation of the get together she had planned with her friends later at the bar on the campus corner.

Taylor walked out the door thirty seconds after four, trying to avoid the clerk’s resentful glare and careful not to slam the door behind her. She was a shy person and, even if she didn’t want to admit it, she found this whole situation of being on her own a little overwhelming.

As she stepped out of the building she couldn’t help a shiver, all those old halls were so cold and drafty, a far cry from the warm California climate she was used to. She’d never been out of state before, and felt a little unsure in her new surroundings, but since her mother thought her school choice, and in particular the choice of the school’s location all the way across the continent, was an act of rebellion, pure and simple, Taylor didn’t expect to get any sympathy for her plight. It was no use trying to explain to her mother, who, as usual, was in the midst of some extraordinary life drama, that being admitted to this school was something many of her friends and acquaintances couldn’t dream of, and being admitted on a full scholarship was nothing short of a miracle.

She ground her teeth and tried not to remember all the tears and the drama and the not so subtle guilt trips that accompanied her coming here. She felt a foot taller walking down the alleys of the old courtyard, and she asked herself how she got that lucky. All around her students hurried back and forth, going about their business, and Taylor instinctively looked down, trying not to attract too much attention.

She stopped to pick up the dorm room key, secretly wishing for a place with maybe not so much historical character but lots of creature comforts. She hadn’t gotten used to the eastern time, she was cold and tired, and that shiver she had caught in the hall of the administrative building had settled into her bones, determined to stay.

She turned the corner and breathed a sigh of relief to see the dorm was not one of the imposing buildings whose facades embellished the pages of the glossy college brochures, but a rather nondescript seventies’ style building which held the promise of proper insulation, modern plumbing and correctly balanced central air. The inside of it was exactly as she expected, vinyl tiles in a rather uninspiring shade of tan, two coats of white paint on the walls, plywood doors painted brown, and standard fluorescent fixtures.

She’d been assigned room number seven, and she had some trouble finding it, because not only was it on the second floor, which would have been strange enough, but the rooms were numbered backwards. Taylor didn’t think much of it, too tired from her trip and relieved to have found a place where she could finally lay down her backpack and kick off her shoes. She passed room number eight and couldn’t help but notice that some uninspired person had secured the number to the door through the middle instead of its top, and it had slipped sideways, looking like a lemniscate. Even though she was exhausted and she’d gotten in trouble over this type of obsessive behavior before, she spent some time straightening out the eight; she couldn’t stand things that were out of place, or in any way out of order; it was her way to establish some order in her environment, whose defining characteristic, she often thought, was being over the top and out of control.

She liked to keep her room in pristine shape, always, as a sanctuary against the arguments, and the mess, and the drama that had surrounded her family life after her father’s sudden passing, drama which functioned as a stand-in for the family time they used to have when he was alive. Her mother had never adjusted to widowhood, and Taylor kind of understood her constant, out of the blue tantrums, and why it was easier to throw fits over every hang nail than face the empty chair at the table.

Taylor had loved her father dearly and she changed after his passing, she became practical, scientific, exacting, focused, all great euphemisms for the more negative term, cynical, that she didn’t particularly enjoy.

Anyway, she insisted on straightening out the number eight, which didn’t want to stay put, and lingered by the wrong door until she managed to will the number into some precarious form of equilibrium, and only after she was satisfied she kept walking towards her room, thinking that if anybody saw that display of OCD, she’d get referred to a school counselor for sure, and since she’d seen more than her share or those, why, with the grief and all, she thought she’d rather pass on a new opportunity.

To her pleasant surprise her room only had one bed in it, an unexpected perk for a freshman, explained no doubt by the fact that the bathroom was down the hall, but the benefit of having a room all to herself certainly outweighed the inconvenience and made Taylor’s first triumphal day on campus complete.

Otherwise the room wasn’t much to look at, a bed, a nightstand, a closet, a desk, a chest of drawers, a mirror, a small window, but Taylor was too pleased with her fresh experience of living as a grown-up to mull over minor details. She forgot how tired she was and, energized by a fresh jolt of adrenaline, unpacked and set up her things just so, until she was pleased with the result.

When she was finished, she sat down on the bed, not knowing what to do next. She looked at the class roster, happy that she managed to get in all the pre-med classes she was planning to take that quarter, and therefore she wouldn’t need to adjust her schedule; she hated it when she had to change things she had planned in advance. She wrote down a list of books and supplies she had to buy before the classes started, and made a mental note to find a vegetarian food place and a coffee shop, and a place that served warm bagels. Since she hadn’t had anything to eat since ten in the morning, she figured there was no time like the present to explore her surroundings and went out for an early dinner.

She exited the campus through one of the old stone gates into a swarm of people eager to patronize the little shops on its perimeter, many of which served food. Taylor was confident that she would have no trouble finding a vegetarian restaurant, this being an Ivy League school and all, even if it was on the East Coast, and when she found one she ate a frugal meal at a small table by the window, taking in the street view with curiosity and anticipation. She didn’t know a lot of people and felt awkward about making new acquaintances, but at least she knew Christine, and they could stick together for a while, until they got their sea legs, so to speak.

Christine’s dorm was on the other side of the campus, in one of those old stone buildings Taylor just couldn’t get used to, and the chill down her spine returned when she entered the vast lobby, even though she was in much better shape after some rest and on a full stomach. Christine wasn’t in, but as she stood by the door, waiting for somebody to answer, Taylor couldn’t help notice the cute guy who was visiting the adjacent room. He looked a bit too much a jock for her taste, but had this warm and genuine smile that lit up his eyes, and she figured he was one of those happy, light hearted people whose lives always look easier, not because they are, of course, but because they have that gift that her father had always found fascinating, the lightness of being, he called it. That term had stuck with her, the lightness of being, the quintessence of happiness.

She didn’t want to admit to herself that she wouldn’t have minded running into him again around campus, wondered in which department he was taking classes and then resented herself for getting so easily distracted from her task; she made peace with the fact that Christine was not in her room and headed back to her dorm.

On the way back she pulled out her phone, only to learn that her mother hadn’t answered any of the messages she had left her, to set her mind at ease that she had arrived OK, that the room was nice, that she registered for all the classes and everything was peachy keen. It looked like another installment of the familiar tantrums, this time triggered by abandonment issues, or, in translation, the heartbreaking selfishness of her only child, and the fact that in complete disregard of the wonderful educational opportunities she had back home, her ungrateful daughter had decided to remove herself from her presence and pursue her studies elsewhere. Taylor got instantly enraged every time this issue came up, because she knew people who would have given an eyetooth for a chance like hers and she was certainly not going to miss out on it for a whim. Naturally, anger was an unwelcome emotion, and she didn’t like to feel it, so she labeled the feeling as irrelevant, shoved it in a drawer somewhere deep inside her mind, then locked the drawer and threw away the key.

She was already inside her dorm when she put the phone away, and as she passed door number lemniscate she straightened up the number again, without even thinking about it. Christine was waiting in her room, and Taylor worried that she forgot to lock the door before she left. Christine guessed her inner conversation and responded to it.

“Oh, I don’t think your door locks, see?”, she showed her friend the chip in the door frame where the locking hardware was supposed to go.

“Figures!” Taylor thought bitterly, and put finding a locksmith on her list of things to do.

“Where does that go?” Christine pointed to another door, and Taylor couldn’t believe she didn’t notice it before, tired, dazed and hungry as she was when she had entered her room for the first time. “'It looks like it connects to room number eight,” Christine continued.

“Jeez, this ‘perk’ starts looking more and more like a pain the more I learn about it,” Taylor mumbled under her breath. “I hope at least this door locks.” She studied the door and tried to open it, but to no avail.

“You don’t have the key to this one, do you?” Christine asked.

Taylor shook her head.

“I’d push the chest of drawers against it, you know, for safety, at least until I was sure it stayed locked,” Christine advised wisely. 'You don’t even know what kind of weirdo is going to move into that room.”

Together, they pushed the chest of drawers against the door, spent a couple of hours discussing first impressions about the campus and the people in it, during which they demolished a box of chocolates Christine had brought from home. She didn’t want to keep it around as a constant temptation, so they finished it and then called it a night.

***

The next morning Taylor woke up to bumping and shuffling sounds coming from the room next door, all of which sounded like somebody was moving in, and she figured that whoever it was, they must have brought a lot of furniture with them. The noise lasted for more than an hour, so, despite the fact that she didn’t have to go to any classes yet, she got up and walked to the bathroom down the hallway, somewhat uncomfortable that she was going to run into the movers while still donning her pajamas. She passed by door number eight, whose number had slid sideways again, and straightened it up, almost by reflex, before she continued walking.

To her relief, there didn’t seem to be any sign of activity outside the door or in the hallway, the noises came exclusively from inside, as if somebody kept rearranging the furniture. Taylor shrugged, and since this whole hullabaloo was none of her business, she got ready to go out and spent a few hours exploring the campus. She combed the library to find out what goodies she could find in it, searched far and wide until she found a locksmith and scheduled an appointment to fix the door. She was shocked to learn that his next available time slot was more than a month out.

“What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”, she asked, revolted, but the locksmith turned his back, indifferent, because he was way too familiar with young people’s door hardware mishaps and frankly, he didn’t care.

Taylor turned on her heels and went to meet Christine at the student cafeteria, a place most of the newcomers tended to gravitate to. She found her there indeed, sitting at a table in the sunken interior courtyard, basking in the mellow light of the autumnal sun and sipping her latte.

“Can you believe the locksmith won’t come fix my door for an entire month!?” she blurted out to her friend, still outraged, in search of comfort and solidarity.

“That’s awful!” Christine sympathized. “What are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know, get a surface bolt or something,” she said, and then she realized that wouldn’t help at all when she was not in the room and brushed the issue aside, really annoyed. She changed the subject. “Somebody moved into room number eight this morning, they were making a lot of noise.”

Christine’s curiosity was piqued.

“Did you see who?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Taylor replied, and then she didn’t know what else to say. She and Christine were casual acquaintances, they had gone to the same high school but hardly attended any classes together. It’s not that she didn’t like her conversation partner, she just didn’t know her all that well. The abrupt silence made Christine uncomfortable, so she took charge of the conversation.

“Did your mother call?” she asked innocently, sure that she had picked a safe subject and not realizing that she had inadvertently stepped on one of Taylor’s emotional land mines.

“No,” the latter responded, without any follow up, trying to signal through the morose briefness of her response that this subject was never to be opened again. Christine felt really bad about it, not knowing what exactly it was that she did wrong. She was a genuinely nice person, so she blamed herself for upsetting her new friend and tried to figure out the easiest way out of the sudden awkwardness, so she drew upon another safe subject, college courses, to dig herself out of it.

“So, what classes did you register for?” The subject fed about half an hour of conversation, during which, to Christine’s delight, her friend’s mood was restored. They noticed with excitement the overlaps in their schedules and promised to exchange impressions about the courses they took separately, got more coffee, munched on some bagels, and then Christine suddenly remembered she had an appointment with one of the student advisers and departed in a hurry.

Taylor finished her coffee, somewhat glad that classes were starting the following day. Trying to keep herself otherwise occupied was a bigger challenge than she had thought. She was so accustomed to grown-ups drafting her schedule for her she didn’t quite know how to fill her own time without it.

She remembered the shiny new student ID and made her way to the library, determined to find something good to read, and emerged from the imposing building, about an hour later, with a stack of books that was almost too heavy to carry. It became clear to her, as she was struggling under her bulky load, that she grossly overestimated the amount of time she was going to have available for leisurely reading after her classes started.

She hauled the big stack of books up the stairs and felt grateful that it blocked her field of vision enough not to notice whether the eight on the door was standing upright, because as she walked past the door with her hands full, the thought of going to her room, putting the books down and returning to the hallway to remedy the situation, especially since there was now somebody inside the room who could hear her, felt simply embarrassing.

Therefore she went past door number eight without looking and found the silver lining behind her door lock situation: she was able to open it with her elbow and didn’t have to lay the book bundle on the floor. At least the door closed, she thought. Having to prop closed a door left constantly ajar would have been much worse.

She spent the rest of the afternoon browsing through the books, picked one and started reading, and was startled when the noises in room number eight resumed. “What on earth was that person doing?” she wondered. “How much furniture rearranging does a person require?” Coming from someone who had spent more than an hour the previous day to figure out the best configuration for the sock drawer, that meant a lot. Besides, she was sure that all the vibrations from dragging furniture around had unsettled the number on the door, number which now weighed heavily on her obsessive brain, she could just picture it slowly drifting askew.

She got out into the corridor, sure to find out that more furniture was being brought in, but there was no sign of such activity, quite the opposite, the door looked like it had never been opened. She looked closer at the handle, still dusty after the summer break, and the dust had not been disturbed at all, proof that if anybody entered that room, it wasn’t through the front door. There was no light visible under the door either, and Taylor was sure the light was on in the room, because she could see it glow behind the door connecting it to hers.

“How on earth did they bring all that stuff in?” Curiosity got the better of her, and she leaned out of her window, to see if there was a pulley or something lifting up stuff to the window of the adjacent room, but there was no pulley, and in fact, to her total bewilderment, she saw that there was no window either. She figured the space must be used for some sort of storage or mechanical room, which took her ‘perk’ levels down another peg; if that was the case people were going to drag stuff in and out of it the whole year long. “But how were they bringing anything in?”, curiosity kept nudging her.

She got out again and walked back into the corridor, paying a lot more attention to her surroundings this time. It was one of those short corridor lengths, designed to avoid the requirement to install a sprinkler system, and for this reason there were only two rooms on it, room seven, the one she was in, and room eight, which shared one wall with her room, and the other one with the elevator shaft. Taylor dismissed the ridiculous idea of stuff being brought in by elevator, since this was a school dorm, not a luxury penthouse, but just to cross that t she took the elevator to the first floor and verified the fact that its only door opened into the corridor.

Since she was on the first floor already, she looked around. Beneath room number eight was a large open space, the kind university planners devised to house some sort of lounge for when students received visitors. Of course the students’ visitors always went to the students’ rooms, so that space, that felt kind of cold and impersonal, was always empty, except the rare occasion of the dorm party, when it served as an outlet for the overflow of people and their many kegs. The space had an open ceiling, compliments of value engineering and modern architectural standards, and upon a summary inspection Taylor noticed that the ribbed concrete floor slab had no openings, there was nothing there that would provide access, not through the mess of plumbing, cable trays and air conditioning ducts anyway. She went back to the elevator, double checked the side panel to make sure there was no mechanism behind it, and attempted to go to the third floor, but there was no third floor, she noticed. Pleased that she had solved the mystery, she took the roof access stairs all the way up, where the triumph of logic and reason got squashed by a gigantic air conditioning unit that occupied the entire expanse of that portion of the roof. She would have been able to notice it quite easily if she ever looked up when she approached the building, but sadly, she never did.

“This isn’t possible,” she thought, and her logical mind grabbed on to the only available possibility left, however unlikely. Somebody broke the lock on her door on purpose, so they could bring the furniture into room number eight through the door between their rooms. She got instantly infuriated about the intrusion upon her privacy, until she realized that whoever it was that was still dragging furniture around in room number eight would not be able to come out unless she moved the chest of drawers which was now blocking the door. She brooded, thinking that it served them right and that she wasn’t going to move anything until the perpetrator identified him or herself and asked very nicely to be let out.

She tried to quell her growing annoyance by concentrating on the book she had chosen to read first, although who could possibly concentrate with all that racket! She thought she heard muffled voices arguing, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying, and then there was more furniture dragging and knocking sounds, after which the noise suddenly subsided.

“Finally!”, she thought, happy to have her life, such as it was, go back to normal. She was pleased to have learned she didn’t live next to a utility room, and therefore whatever activity was happening at the time was temporary in nature, and in her deep desire to return life to its familiar grove she propped the room door closed with the back of a chair, turned the light off and went to sleep, completely forgetting she had an intruder trapped behind her sock drawers like the ghost in the wall.

***

She went to class the next day, and in her excitement of adjusting to all the new things around her, she completely forgot about room number eight and whoever was still in there. The day passed in a mix of trepidation and exhilaration, driven by the challenge of finding her way through the halls of so many unfamiliar buildings. When classes ended she was drained of energy and emotion, kind of hungry and looking forward to a little time alone to sit down and sift through the events of the day.

The single occupancy of her dorm room started looking appealing to her once more, despite all the flaws that tiny room had, because right at that very moment the thought of having to engage in light conversation with a complete stranger felt almost painful. As she passed by the elevator shaft on her way to the stairs she saw the lounge on the first floor and remembered the events of the previous evening; she cringed at the thought that she would have to handle a confrontation with the person in room number eight, if he or she didn’t take advantage of her absence to sneak out.

The chest of drawers was still pressed against the door, just the way she had left it, and there was no sound coming from the adjacent room. Taylor wasn’t a naturally patient person, and the thought of waiting out a sign of contrition from the trespassing noise maker rubbed her the wrong way. Even as tired as she was, and in search for peace and quiet, the thought of having whoever it was in there come out of the room at any time, unexpectedly, seemed unpalatable.

She decided to take a proactive approach, pushed the chest of drawers out of the way and spent a few moments studying the door, and upon noticing there was absolutely nothing special about it, on a whim, she decided to see if it was open this time. It was. The handle gave way and the door swung open before Taylor had time to stop it; the embarrassment of doing something socially awkward was replaced by surprise.

The room was practically empty, with the exception of a large swivel chair marking its center and another old fashioned wing back chair placed nearby, almost as an afterthought. The contrast between the two pieces, one made of red leather stretched tighter than a drum around severe modern contours and the other overstuffed, covered in chintz print and smothered under a sea of pillows, was so stunning that Taylor failed to notice the rest of the oddities in the room, more specifically the fact that it had an octagonal shape and in the middle of each wall there was a door.

She didn’t anticipate there would be a person sitting in the swivel chair, which had its back to the door at the time. She walked into the room, feeling almost as if somebody or something was pushing her from behind and gasped when the chair turned around; she found herself face to face with a young guy with glasses, rather long and unruly black hair and a wispy beard. He didn’t seem surprised to see her, which increased Taylor’s discomfort. Because she didn’t know how to extricate herself from the uncomfortable situation, she blurted the first thing that came to her mind, however illogical.

“What are you doing here?”

“I should ask you this question,” he replied poised. “You’re in my room.”

She wanted to turn around and run back, but then she remembered her broken lock and decided to ask him about it, just to clear the air.

“Of course I didn’t break your door,” he replied annoyed. “I wouldn’t worry about the lock anyway, it’s not a critical detail. Please, sit. I’ve been expecting you.”

Taylor sat in the chintz chair, which was a lot more comfortable than it looked. She settled herself in, grateful for its softness and suddenly remembering how tired she was, and was still adjusting the pillows when she met the young man’s gaze again. She felt absolutely ridiculous sitting there, buried in a mountain of pillows and floral motifs for no particular reason at all.

“I’m touched you found your way to comfort, that’s exactly why I teach this class, to encourage people to settle into their comfort zones.” The sarcasm wasn’t lost on Taylor, but since she had made the first socially unacceptable move by walking into another person’s room uninvited, she ground her teeth and didn’t retort. She regained her composure and asked the obvious question.

“What class?”

“Welcome to WAI 106.67 - Introduction to Wayfinding Systems. It’s an introductory class,” he pointed out the obvious, and Taylor wondered what remedial Wayfinding Systems class she had missed to justify the additional explanation.

“An introductory class in what?” she pushed back.

“Wayfinding,” he pointed out, looking at her as if to assess whether she had the required level of intelligence to attend the class. Taylor sat back in her cozy chair, still trying to figure out who was pulling a prank on her and why, and amazed by the lengths that someone went to in order to generate this level of detail. The doors alone, for one. So she decided to play along and asked.

“Where do the doors lead?” knowing full well after the exploration trip she had taken around the building the day before that they couldn’t possibly lead anywhere.

“We’ll get to each door when its turn comes, but I need to give you the disclaimer about door number eight, it’s university policy, safety training, release of liability, that sort of thing. You get the idea. In short, don’t go through door number eight.”

“Sure,” Taylor replied, with a hint of sarcasm that didn’t escape her conversation partner, “But all the other ones should be safe, right? Or do I have to review the door handle operation manuals before I go through?”

The young man rolled his eyes, clearly irritated, and scrunched his face a bit to adjust the glasses on the bridge of his nose. He spoke sharply.

“God, I hate freshman class, and for some evil reason I always get stuck with it, every single year, at least once! You all think you know everything, this gets so tedious after a couple of decades!”

“How old are you, exactly!?” she thought, shocked, and then remembered she was playing along in a prank, and decided to let go of the question, to see what tall tale he was going to make up next. He didn’t look more than twenty anyway; in fact, if she had to venture a guess he looked exactly her age, and she wouldn’t have been surprised to run into him in one of the courses she had enrolled in. She looked at him carefully, to figure out if she had seen him around campus. He looked very familiar, she didn’t know why, there was something about his facial expressions, his hand gestures, the way he sat in the chair, that she was certain she had seen before, although she simply couldn’t remember where. He was relatively tall, with an athletic, but slender build, dressed in a solid dark t-shirt and jeans. He could have been any of the hundreds of students she passed by as she walked across the courtyard to go from one class to the next. Finding no answer, she shook her head and gave up, and tried to wrap up this charming interlude to go veg out in her room.

“You do know this is a mandatory class for your study major, right?” he asked, even more displeased than before, and the furrow between his eyebrows deepened.

“Of course it is,” she said, and got up to leave. He didn’t try to stop her, so she headed, very sure of herself, in the direction from which she had come, only to notice, in disbelief, that there were only eight doors on the walls, none of which led back to her room.

“No doubt you counted the doors when you came in,” he commented on her bewildered expression. “How many were there?”

“Eight,” she mumbled, still in shock.

“And there you go. There are still eight doors.”

“But…” she protested, really terrified this time.

“Stop fretting, the door will be there when class ends. Sit down, you’re wasting instruction time, you’re not my only pupil, you know.”

She sat down, waiting for him to speak, but he didn’t, he just looked at her, expectantly. They sat in silence for a while, staring at each other, until eventually he looked at his watch and restarted the conversation.

“So, are there any questions you would like me to answer before we begin?”

“Where do I even start?” she thought, simultaneously wondering if the class they were talking about was still forty eight minutes long and glancing furtively at the wall to see if the door was back yet. Her instructor was staring her down, waiting for a question, so she wrecked her brains to come up with one that wouldn’t sound completely idiotic.

“Don’t worry, there is no such thing as a stupid question,” he encouraged, doing his best to contain a restless streak. She obliged.

“Why eight doors?” was the first thought that came to mind and straight out the mouth it went, unsifted.

“Because the curriculum didn’t allow enough time for nine, and seven would have been too few,” he shed light on the issue.

“What happened to room number eight?”, she blurted, almost against her will.

“Oh, now we really do have a good question here, but you need to pass this class to understand the explanation. The short answer is, room number eight is where it has always been.”

“Is the class about these doors?”

“Yes. When you’ve successfully walked through them, the class ends. We’ll meet every day for an hour, just like today,” he said in a voice that started to sound more amenable.

“So, this course is only eight days long?” she asked, still skeptic.

“First, what makes you think you’ll be able to successfully walk through the doors on the first try, and second, what did I say about door number eight?”

“Don’t go through it?”, she asked, tentatively.

“That’s right,” he responded. “We’re going through the doors in their order of difficulty, starting tomorrow with door number one.”

“You are coming too?”

“Oh, definitely. I’m responsible for your welfare for the duration of the class, I don’t even want to picture the bureaucratic nightmare that would ensue if you got lost!”

“Got lost where??!” she panicked.

“Don’t worry, as I said, I’m coming with.”

“What do you mean by ‘successfully go through them’. What’s so hard about walking through a door?”

“You can’t walk through it if it isn’t there,” he smiled, and from the corner of her eye she noticed the door leading back to her room, wide open as she had left it, staring her down from across the room as plain as the nose on her face. He turned his head.

“Well, it looks like the class just ended. See you tomorrow,” he dismissed her.

She hesitated, not knowing whether it was OK to leave and troubled by a thought.

“So,” she finally uttered, “what if I decide not to come back here?”

“It’s your education, not mine. If you do, however, decide to return, class starts promptly at four. Don’t be late, I loathe that.”

“What am I supposed to do in the meantime?” she mumbled confused.

“Go to your other classes, of course.”