The door belonging to Future.

Doors seem rather simple, don’t they? We just open them up and go into another room or place. Nothing complicated, just a way of dividing physical places but yet not keeping them entirely closed off from one thing or the other. This is why they are used in language to showcase things like new beginnings or companionship. We think we know everything about doors, don’t we? Just a bunch of hinges and screws joint to a piece of ply, keeping a room to itself yet still available for entrance and exit. But think, what if instead of just keeping places accessible we could use doors for something else.

Change what we travel through, change what the door meant? Many years ago, around 3000 BC after the invention of the first door. A few scientists and experimentalists looked to take a closer look at the door. We may now think of them as crazy scientists or people with the wildest ideas that did not make a shred of sense, but we would think of anybody that tries to explore something that hasn’t been explored before.

Back in those times, science was not as structured or bounded as it is now. Scientists could explore anything they want. And they did. They looked for a way to make the door not only help open ways in land and distribute space but travel to another time. When? They did not know. How would the door do this exactly? They did not know. At this point you may think these people are crazy just as you had predicted but no. A specific scientist named, Future Acklage, living in the roman empire found a way. Now did this make the word future meaningful in modern language? Probably? I guess there’s only one person you could ask this question to. Future Acklage himself.

He still lives with the door in his house. Never share this knowledge with anyone else. Why? He thought that others would spoil the passage of time, ruining the possible lives that had already occurred in the future. Occurred in the future? It did not make sense to me either when I first looked into it, but it is a reality. What was this door like? Did it have a handle? A key? A door frame? So many unanswered questions. A visit to the future’s house in modern-day Iraq could tell us a lot more about this.

An abandoned bunker at the end of the city with a sign saying keep out. That’s what I thought his house would be like. It was right in the heart of the city of Baghdad. A small old house which was untouched by the urbanisation around it. A house trapped in its own time, maybe so was future? A few knocks later, the door was opened to a sight I didn’t quite understand. Eyes with no wrinkles, a body with no slouch, wearing only a cloth across his chest and around his waist. His face was covered in sand, yet his green eyes twinkled out of the dust. I didn’t understand what I saw. Was this him? Or was this the door and was I in the past? Have I been brainwashed? Was I intoxicated? Was the wine on the flight here a bit too strong?

He put his hand out, not knowing what to do I shook it. He shook back. And said, “Who are you?” I knew I couldn’t say who I actually was so as an impulse I said “Future Acklage” the man at the door embraced me as if he had known me for his entire life. Welcoming me into the house. No lights, no windows, nothing at all. I just walked into a dark room with a strange man wearing a robe. Not my best decision, I don’t think. Suddenly the sun rose, and we were in the roman empire. Thousands of years ago.

There were posters of my face everywhere. Saying I was wanted for keeping my technology from the Emperors. In about 5 seconds I was surrounded by guards. And within a minute I had an axe behind my neck waiting to drop. My exploration into a time I did not belong to, let my time end at the same time I did not belong to. I was from the future, maybe it was a trap? Maybe I was the real future, reborn and destined to go back, yet the very door that I created I could not recognise as I walked through. I understand now why someone wouldn’t give the door’s technology to everyone.