was a door to door door salesman. His job was to knock on the walls of people’s houses and call inside Hello, and then if someone came to greet him, he would say Hello, my name is James, I’m with ACME home trimmings. What have you heard about doors?

And then people would say one of a few things. Sometimes, they would tell him what they knew about doors. Sometimes, they would oh sorry, I’m not interested right now. Sometimes they would say get the fuck out of here, I don’t need a door. And then they would slam nothing in his face.

All in a day’s work.

Some people were confused about the whole idea of doors. “So it blocks the entrance to my house?” an old woman asked him. “What do I do if I want to go in or out?” That was when he’d pull his portfolio and show them the diagram.

“You can open it and close it,” he said, tracing his finger along the printed path of a hinge. “We have all sorts of different models. Some have windows you can see through. Some have peepholes. Most have locks, so you can make it so people can’t get in when you don’t want them to.”

This also confused the woman. “Now why would anyone want to get into my house when I don’t want them to?” she asked him.

And he told her. There was a worrying new craze, he said, that the authorities had termed crime, which involved people engaging in nefarious activities that enacted harm on others. Many of these crimes involved the nonconsensual entry of someone’s house. Somebody might enter her house for any number of reasons: to take her valuables; to light something on fire; even to hurt or kill her.

“Goodness,” said the woman.

“Badness is on the rise,” he told her. “There was a 40% uptick in evil last year alone. Better to protect yourself while you still have the chance.”

In the end, she bought a door, one of the nice mahogany ones with a stained-glass window and three locks.

Mostly, James skipped the houses that already had doors, but sometimes he didn’t. Have you ever considered an upgrade? Here, I can show you some of our newer models. It was late on a Tuesday, nearly sunset, when he knocked on one of these doors. It was an older model, rusted metal covered in aggressively chipping white paint; if any door could use an upgrade, it was this one. A heavyset older man with a graying beard answered the door and watched James impassively as he launched into his spiel; Hello, my name is James, I’m with ACME home trimmings...

When he was done, the man was silent for a moment. “Come in,” he finally grunted. “I have dinner on.”

James hesitated for just for a moment before he followed the man inside. The man was a little odd, sure, but it wasn’t unusual for him to be invited into a house, not unusual at all; often people invited him in for a drink on hot days, invited him to sit at the table so they could flip through his portfolio together. He heard the door click shut behind him, though he hadn’t closed it; the man must have an auto closer attachment. James made a mental note to show him models with the same feature.

The interior of the house was dark and just as dingy as the door that protected it. James followed the man through the hallway and into a kitchen.

“I need to grab something from upstairs,” said the man. He gestured toward a table; James could see a deck of playing cards propping up one of the legs. The man turned away, and James heard the heavy creak of his feet on stairs. James put his portfolio down on the table but didn’t sit. There didn’t seem to be anything cooking, he noticed; the stove and oven and even the microwave were off. There was a faint smell in the air, not of food, but something acrid,
chemical-ly; it was making his throat hurt. James realized he had goosebumps.

Then, from upstairs: a scraping sound, like someone dragging something. Something heavy.

James made up his mind in an instant. He picked up his portfolio and made his way back to the front door with quick, careful steps. This was getting weird, and who knew if the guy was going to buy anyway? He reached for the knob, turned it, and—

Nothing. The door was locked. James reached for the bolt but there wasn’t one, just a keyhole. A door that locked from the inside; James had never even heard of such a thing. He felt panic rise in his throat. A window; there was a window over the kitchen table, he remembered. Deep breaths. Back to the kitchen. Thumps now, as well; thump-scrape, thump-scrape. The man, and whatever he was dragging, were coming downstairs. James could hear his heart beating in his ears. Hands flat against the pane, push up—for a brief, horrifying moment, it didn’t move—but then—yes, thank God—the window slid open.

James didn’t think. He threw himself threw the window and landed on the grass below, his portfolio tumbling open next to him. He grabbed it, staggered to his feet, and started running. A moment later, he heard the door to the house fly open, heard the man yell from behind him, “Hey! Hey!”

But James didn’t stop. He ran until he reached his car, parked two blocks over; he jumped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. Key; ignition; turn; and he sped off, with no particular destination in mind besides away. James drove too fast through the suburbs, his portfolio on the passenger seat next to him, his grip on the steering wheel tight to stop his hands shaking. No doubt about it, it was a scary world, and it was getting scarier every day.

Maybe he should invest in a door.

Rosalind Margulies is a writer with work in EPOCH, StoryQuarterly, X-R-A-Y, Hobart, and elsewhere. You can find her on Twitter @rothalind, or on her website, rosalindmargulies.com. When she isn’t writing, Rosalind works as a door-to-door salesperson.