The Choice

In an alternate universe, everyone must - at some random point in their lives - choose between entering a portal into the unknown and remaining on earth. Short short story

The portal opens for everyone, at some point in their life.  They may be young: I’ve seen a mother grasping her newborn to her chest, the baby’s screams as his own portal rips open before him, too young to ever make his own choice.  Or, I’ve seen a man, in the last seconds of his life, step into the unknown.  These, the older ones, the ones nearest to death, are the lucky ones. 

 

Some may say the young children are also the lucky ones.  Luckier than us, anyways.

 

As for us, the portal opens at some point in our lives when we must choose between a stable, abet painful, life and death on earth, or the unknown. 

 

For some, those who would jump of the side of a cliff with nothing but a rope around their legs to keep them safe, it is an easy choice: the portal opens and they walk in.  For others, the risk, the gamble of what’s truly beyond the portal is too much.  And so we remain. 

 

Although, did we miss out?  Is there, beyond the portal, truly, as some men say, the promise of everlasting life?  Of joy, of a world, a better world than ours’, without pain.  Some people, some almost religious men, swear by this.  Yet, I have seen the same people, the same almost religious men, balk, startle, and turn away when their own portal opens. 

 

There is no way to come back.  There is no way to send a message through.  No one sees your own portal but yourself.  No one knows when their portal will open. 

 

So, do you stay and live out your life on earth and die?  Do you go through and live forever, happy?

 

Or do you go through and instantly die or suffer a fate worse than death? 

 

How do you know?  How do you choose?

 

One could spend a lifetime debating on the pros and cons.  One could spend a lifetime making up their mind, which way they would go, then falter and choose differently at the time of reckoning. 

 

Some men decide to stay on Earth, only to leave it and their lives behind the second the portal opens.

 

Some men have already decided to go, to see the land beyond the portal, only to leave their own trials in tears and still on Earth.

 

Does the portal even take you off Earth?

 

I have seen a woman throw her own baby through, unable to choose. 

 

I have seen another woman yell and shout into the world beyond. 

 

I have seen braver women, braver men, in tears, fists bloody and hitting.

 

Some of these brave ones choose to go.  Some choose to stay.

 

Which would you choose?

 

Some say before we are born, we first choose to go through a portal: that portal leads us to the life we live on Earth. 

 

Some say when we die, we go through another portal too. 

 

Like the portal that opens to us in life, who knows where these other two portals come from or go.  Who knows why they are here.

 

Some say it doesn’t matter which way you chose to go. 

Some say either way you end up in the same place: dead. 

 

Some say that choosing portal is evil.  Some say it is the ultimate salvation.  All of these people have already lost their own chance to go through.  All they can do is speculate.

 

All I can do is speculate too. 

 

What can you do?  Which way do you chose when the moment of reckoning comes? 

 

 The portal opens for everyone. 

 

So choose.