SOMEWHERE BETWEEN CLOSING TIME AND MORNING

‘’See you tomorrow, Angie", she said, waving goodbye to her as she left the café exhausted. Hazel's shift had ended; it was 11pm. Her feet and back hurt because she had been working since noon that day. She quickly made her way to the bus stop to catch the last bus home. See, Hazel didn’t own a car and couldn’t afford a taxi. The bus was her only way home.

She stood at the bus stop looking at her watch. It was 11:30pm. “That’s strange", she thought to herself. The bus was almost always on time. It was dark and cold with barely anything in sight. It made her uneasy. A little scared even. It had seemed like ten minutes had passed by, and she checked her watch again. It was still 11:30pm. She let out a loud gasp. “It can't be", she whispered. Tonight felt different. The street was empty. No distant sirens. No headlights from cars. No humming from the streetlights. Just silence, as if the world had held its breath and time literally stopped.

That's when she noticed the door right in the middle of the sidewalk. Everything inside her told her to run. Perhaps back to the café, the nearest hospital, or even the highway. Anywhere but there. Instead she walked toward the door, reached out, and turned the brass key.

She stepped through the door and into a hallway. The door closed behind her. When she looked back, it was gone. Now just a wall. Ahead of her was a long corridor that seemed to have no end. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead- yellowed linoleum floor. At the far end, she could see two doors. One maroon. One blue.

“You would think a magical hallway between worlds would have at least some color,” she muttered to herself. Perhaps as a way to lighten the mood.

A figure stood in the middle of the hallway. Tall. Slender. Long grey coat. She couldn’t quite make out the face.

“You're joking,” Hazel said.

The figure said nothing.

“Where am I?”

The figure tilted its head. “Somewhere between closing time and morning."

Hazel squinted and asked, “Are you Death?”

The figure was quiet for a moment and said, “I have been called many things. The One Who Waits. The Silence Between. The Unanswered.”

That was not the answer she hoped for, yet she did not want to ask further questions.

“Great,” she muttered.

She felt a key in her hand. It was different from the one she used earlier to open the door. It looked much older and embroidered. Like something calling to her past, yet reassuring.

Confused she asked the figure, “what I am I supposed to do?”

“It is simple. Choose,” said the figure nodding at the two doors. “One door. One key. One choice.”

Those were words that Hazel thought she would never hear. She worked an ordinary job, living an ordinary life born to ordinary parents. She was trying to get by each day and making the best out of the little life had given her. She wasn't special. Why was this happening to her? As these thoughts raced through her mind, she remembered her small cramped apartment that always needed fixing. She hated it sure, it was all she could afford, but oh, she wished she was there more than anything.

She didn’t know what came next. Was this the end of her ordinary life? Some kind of test to teach her to appreciate her life more? Hazel remembered she hadn't talked to her parents in a very long time. After years of abuse from her mother, who called her ungrateful and blamed her for ruining her life, she left. Well, her father left them when she was six years old. He remarried and had other children. He was happy and barely called Hazel to check in. Suddenly, it dawned on her that if this was really the end, then she wasn't missing out on much.

Hesitantly she asked, “Choose what?”

The figure did not answer her and stepped aside.

Hazel walked to the maroon door first. Her hand hovered over the handle. To her surprise, she didn’t need the key. It was already unlocked. She pushed it open.

The stained carpet. The empty beer bottles. The unwashed dishes in the sink. The smell of cheap cologne and bitter memories. The picture on the wall that was always a little crooked. The curtains that were barely drawn. The broken chair at the corner that he said he would always fix.

And him. On the couch. Phone in his hand. Scrolling and typing. Barely looking up to catch her gaze.

“There you are,” he said. “I called you three times.”

“I was working,” Hazel said. Without thinking, the words came out before she could stop them. Like muscle memory. Like falling.

“You are always working.”

She felt it happen. The shift. The way her shoulders curved inward. The way her voice dropped. The way her brain started spinning, searching for the right thing to say. Something. Anything that wouldn't make him angry.

“Come here,” he said.

She couldn’t get her legs work. His eyes flickered. For a second: cold. Unloving. Dead. Then the smile came back. The one that would get her to forgive him even when she knew he did not mean it. The one that would get her to take him back over and over even when she knew better.

She remembered this night. Not this exact night, but almost every other night. The pattern was always the same. Him always drinking a little too much. Then the fight would start. It was always about something and then about everything. Her world would crash after. She remembered the yelling. His voice bouncing off the walls. The way he would raise his hand to hit her and she would flinch. The times he did hit her and pull her hair when she attempted to walk away. The words she knew by heart: crazy, selfish, lucky he stayed, no one else would put up with you.

Suddenly it was also the missed birthdays. The anniversaries they did not celebrate because he did not believe in the tradition. The time he stood her up at the movies. The dates he didn't plan. The gifts and flowers she never received. The girls he kept around craving for his attention.

She stared down the hallway to her right. The bathroom. She found out she was pregnant on a Tuesday morning, right before she rushed off to work. She remembered being hopeful and a little scared. On Thursday evening, she told him. He didn’t yell. He didn’t even look surprised. He just said, “We are not going to keep it.” The decision had already been made. His decision. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t decided what she wanted yet.

Ultimately, three weeks later, her body decided for both of them. Bleeding in the bathroom at 2 am. Him asleep on the couch. She sat on the cold tile floor and watched the blood pool between her feet. She didn’t call for him. She never told him what happened. He never asked. She felt as if she were watching another person's story from behind the scenes. Except it was her story. Her life. Perhaps the only thing she knew—the chaos.

As much as she tried to keep it together, tears came gushing down her cheeks. She had had enough. She stumbled backwards from the maroon door. She slid down until she was sitting on the floor, knees to her chest, shaking.

The figure stood over her. Silent.

After a long time, she looked up.

“What is behind the blue door?”

“See for yourself.”

She opened the door and walked in.

The room was smaller than she expected. Blue walls, soft like the sky just before sunrise, the kind of blue that made her think of the mornings she used to love. A wooden chair faced a big window. A glass of water sat on the sill. A small table beside the chair held nothing else. The floor beneath her feet felt warm, as if the building itself were alive. She sat in the chair. It fit her. Soft like she was. Outside the window was a garden filled with flowers that she wished he bought for her.

It was silent. If she ever felt peace, this would be it. She noted that the room was mostly empty, as if it were waiting to be filled. Filled with new memories and love. Curious, she picked up the glass of water and drank it. It tasted like nothing and everything at the same time.

She looked around the room, with corridors she could imagine led to other rooms. No stained carpet. No empty beer bottles. No unwashed dishes in the sink. No smell of cheap cologne and bitter memories. No picture on the wall that was always a little crooked. In fact, it did not have curtains, which let in the sunlight in the best possible way. Definitely, no broken chair. Most importantly, not him. It was just her.

The room didn’t tell her she had made a terrible mistake staying with him. It didn’t tell her she needed to be strong. It didn’t tell her she would heal. It didn't promise her a better future or a new love. It just let her sit. She slowly realized that was the first time anyone, or anything had let her just be without asking or needing something in return.

So Hazel stayed in the chair. Time passed. The garden outside the window grew. She could see the dog she had in mind when she was ready to have one. She allowed herself to feel it all. She sat in the chair for a long time. Long enough for her breathing to slow down. Long enough for her hands to stop shaking and to remember that her body was hers again.

Eventually, she stood up. She looked back at the doorway. The hallway was gone and so was the figure. The maroon door was gone. There was only the blue room, the garden and the glass of water. She didn’t know how to leave. She didn’t know if she wanted to. It felt like home.

Then she noticed it. A door. Not the one she came through. A different one. Small. Unlocked. On the far end of the wall, half-hidden by the blue paint. When she opened, it was dark still—the bus stop. A bus finally arrived, headlights cutting through the dark. She stepped through the door, which closed behind her. When she looked back, it was just a wall again.

The bus doors opened.

“Last call,” the driver said.

Hazel got on. She sat down. Put her head against the window. She stared at the key in her hand, only it wasn't embroidered anymore, but a gold key with pink roses around it. Just like the garden in the blue door. Just like her favorite flowers. A sense of peace washed over her.

The bus rumbled through the empty streets. Passengers boarded while others got off at their destinations. Completely unaware of the girl who sat at the back. The girl who had met Death. Hazel didn’t know what the key opened now. The blue door was gone. The hallway was gone. All that was left was the key. It had become something of hers.

She thought about the blue room. The soft chair. The sunlight. The corridors that led to other rooms, rooms she hadn't explored yet. Rooms, she would fill herself. With what? She didn’t know. A dog, maybe. New memories. New love. Or maybe just herself, fully, for the first time.

When Hazel got home, she was happy. She sat on her futon. The apartment was still small. Still hers. She carefully placed the key on the coffee table and sank into the chair. Her eyes closed immediately. Perhaps she was tired from work or overwhelmed by her encounter with the grey-coated figure. One door. One key. One choice. But for the first time in years, she wasn’t afraid of the morning.