Behind The Door
by David Colosi
............A character was in a room with three doors. He opened the first door and found he could step into Paris. He opened the second door and found he could step into Tokyo. He opened the third door and found he could step into New York.
............Although it is impossible in the "real" world to have a room with three doors that lead to three cities that are thousands of miles apart, in the world this little story creates, such a thing is possible. If another door appeared we would feel comfortable if it opened to Tai Pei. If a fifth door opened to Mars, we could also consider this Possible in the world created, because these doors always open to another place. We don't know the full range of places yet. They could also open to another time, and still remain Possible within the narrative.
............If the character can do it, it is a possibility in the narrative. Unless, somewhere in the narrative, it is stated that the doors, in our example, could only open to different cities on Earth. Then if one of the doors opened and our character stepped into a Martian city, we would doubt his ability to do that, and/or doubt the honesty of the narrator. And if we doubt our narrator then we don't know if it is even possible to go from one door to Paris, the other to Tokyo and the other to New York. Maybe one really goes to the kitchen, the other to the bathroom and the third to the bedroom.
If our story read like this:
............A character was in a room with three doors. He opened the first door and found he could step into the kitchen. He opened the second door and found he could step into the bathroom. He opened the third door and found he could step into the bedroom.
............We would think he was at home (or in someone else's house). But just because the scene is Possible in the "actual" world doesn't mean that it is Possible in the narrative world. We have to trust the description of the design of the house.
If our story read like this:
............A character was in a room with three doors each marked by a number. He opened the door marked number 1 and found he could step into the kitchen. He opened the door marked number 2 and found he could step into the bathroom. He opened the door marked number 3 and found he could step into the bedroom. The bedroom was not next to the bathroom. The kitchen was between the bathroom and the bedroom. The bathroom was not behind the second door he opened.
............Then we would have to think through the layout of the room to see if it is possible that the man could have performed such and action. We find it is possible, if we accept that the three doors are not numbered in order, nor are they opened according to the number order. A diagram makes this easier to see.
If our story read like this:
............A character was in a room with three doors. On each door there were two knobs, a regular gold one and a glowing florescent green one. One knob opened the door to the right and the other to the left. He opened the first door using the gold knob and found he could step into the kitchen. He opened the second door using the gold knob and found he could step into the bathroom. He opened the third door using the gold knob and found he could step into the bedroom. Then he opened the first door using the florescent green knob and found he could step into Paris. He opened the second door using the florescent knob and found he could step into Tokyo. He opened the third door using the green florescent knob and found he could step into New York.
............We understand this as a Possible World because, if a character turns a gold knob to open a door, he will appear in a room in his house. But if he opens a door with a florescent green knob he will appear in a different city.
But, if the story remained the same until the man opened the third door with the florescent green knob and found himself in the bedroom, the reader would start to question the Possibility of the World. Was the florescent green knob on the third door broken? Do doors opened by the florescent green knobs always open to another city? Does the gold knob on the third door open to New York? Does the third door open to only the bedroom? Do the first and second doors, when opened by using the florescent green knob always open to another city or do they sometimes open to the rooms of a house? The gold knobs? Is it possible that the first door the man opened could sometimes open, by using the gold knob, to Mars? All of these questions are possible and all of these possibilities are possible within the narrative, because it remains open.
But if our story read like this:
............A character was in a room with three doors, each marked by a number. On each door there were two knobs, a regular gold one and a glowing florescent green one. One knob opened the door to the right and the other to the left. He opened the door marked number 1 using the gold knob and found he could step into the kitchen. He opened the door marked number 2 using the gold knob and found he could step into the bathroom. He opened the door marked number 3 using the gold knob and found he could step into the bedroom.
............Then he opened the door marked number 1 using the florescent green knob and found he could step into Paris. He opened the door marked number 2 using the florescent knob and found he could step into Tokyo. He opened the door marked number 3 using the green florescent knob and found he could step into New York.
............The bedroom was not next to the bathroom. The kitchen was between the bathroom and the bedroom. The bathroom was not behind the second door he opened. Paris cannot be accessed by opening a door with a florescent green handle. The bathroom and Tokyo cannot share the same door the man opened second. The door marked number three only had one red knob. There were only two doors in the room. The man was really a woman.
............We would be frustrated as readers. We would trust our narrator no longer, thinking he/she/it was trying to confuse us on purpose. We would feel as if we had been taken on a ride for the taking. We can trace our steps and scold ourselves for having blindly trusted our leader, but all we get as a reward is our own reprimand. The text communicates nothing else to us. Everything we gain is of our own doing.
............If the same text ended with the line, "Never trust the written word," then we would know that the text, as well as the writer, was aware of what it did and meant to do to the reader. The selfreflexivity of the text explains to us why we were subjected to this performance. Readers then, instead of feeling they had wasted their time, feel that they should be more cautious in making assumptions. Or feels that this text is a friend, cautioning them that other texts will not be so overt. In another situation a text, or the writer of one by way of one, could take further advantage of them.
back to [ C3I | Impossible Monkeys | Top ]
