All the Doors

A priest admonishes Godric:

THIS LIFE OF OURS is like a street that passes many doors," Ball said, "nor think you all the doors I mean are wood. Every day's a door and every night. When a man throws wide his arms to you in friendship, it's a door he opens same as when a woman opens hers in wantonness. The street forks out, and there's two doors to choose between. The meadow that tempts you rest your bones and dream a while. The rack-ribbed child that begs for scraps the dogs have left. The sea that calls a man to travel far. They all are doors, some God's and some the Fiend's. So choose with care which ones you take, my son, and one day—who can say—you'll reach the holy door itself."

"Which one is that, Father?" I asked for courtesy, for I was hot to leave. I was on my knees before him and with his one straight eye he held me there.

"Heaven's door, Godric," he said.

-Originally published in Godric


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