When he got off of the transport- an interstellar 10-speed that was an exact replica of the one he had loved to ride all around Indianapolis before it happened- an attendant in a white suit with a green tie met him visually, nodded, reached out for the bike, and pointed at the 20 pairs of glass double doors many others were entering. Above the doors was a screen with a sign that changed languages every few seconds. In big beefy Gothic letters, it read “Mall of Fates” soon in script he could understand. Perplexed, he watched the different other modes of transportation arrive and drop folks curbside at the massive complex- cars, rockets, planes, skates, gliders, trains, mini-subs. Everyone else was entering the building- he might as well also, he reasoned. The valet in the green suit audiblyy said, “Good choice, sir” and pointed again at the wall of doors before wheeling the bike on down the walkway behind him.

Inside the doors was the biggest room he had ever been in. It was bigger than a stadium, than an airplane hanger, than the fictitious dome over Gotham city, and beyond all of the people in front of him he could not count, there were doors every few feet along the wall around the perimeter.

“You come here often?” a flirty greeter lobbed at him, a pretty brunette in classic stewardess apparel. Before he could answer her, her smile disappeared and she was gone.

The people funneled into lanes that went to thousands of stations, like TSA checkpoints in an airport. Behind each desk at each station was an attendant like the ones outside donning white suits and green ties. His stomach growled, and he didn’t know what time it was, and he also didn’t want to stand in line forever, so he turned around and looked behind him at the doors he had just come through. The glass walls he saw so clearly into from without were paned with one-way glass. Behind him, the glass wall was a video of the last 4 minutes of his earthly life, filmed Point of View fashion, on loop. He was suddenly seized with self-awareness and shame and bowed his head so he would not be looked at by the stream of people also entering the place, streaming by him. He was ashamed, and yet he wanted to look, and see what had happened. He was ashamed and seized with fear and awkwardness and curiosity all at the same time- until he saw the first loop end. Then he was filled with panic. “I have got to get out of here!”

Like a salmon heading home, he tried to push his way back toward the doors the others were coming in through, slowly, so slowly making progress until he quit pushing and the current forced him backwards. The film continued to loop in front of him, the people pushed past him headed the other way, unaware of his moment of doom featured grandly behind them on a 15 story wall.

His push to get back to the entrance doors began to stray and deviate, and as he fought to walk straight forward, his path was shoved to the left, until in his fight to get to the doors, he ended up 100 feet to their left at the wall, the only one not trying to go the other direction. And in front of him were door after door to his left and right, many with “I’ll be back” signs with the little clock hands stripped off.

One of the doors 40 feet to his left had a small glowing “Exit” sign above it, and as best he could figure, that was his way out of the place. Jostling in the flood of entrants still passing him, he steeled himself and shoved through the harried hoard around him, keeping the glowing sign in sight, fighting to get to it. After what must have been an hour and a half- who knows- he was able to grab the wooden door’s knob and wrench it slightly open. He pressed into the thin gap, and behind it was a long curtain of black material. He struggled to find a split in the fabric as passed through the doorway. Soon, in a fold, the curtain opened, and he fell forward- into a 4-foot square alcove that was also walled in by one-way glass. As he stood there, he slowly recognized that what he saw before and around him on the mirrors enclosing him were reflections of his own stunned and beleaguered face- exactly what those in the sea of vehicles pulling up in lanes and lines trying to get curbside access to the Mall of Fates could see.

And then it occurred to him that the space he stood in was also very small.

He turned around and wrestled with the hanging tapestry until beyond it, his hand felt the door, and he slid it over to where the knob should be.

And there wasn’t one.

And the “door” didn’t budge when he threw himself into it to try and open it.