The Door to December

therapy, being forced to climb into the sensory-deprivation tank ... well, it seemed to be draining the life out of the girl. If memories could be vampiric, these were exactly that, sucking the blood and vitality from her.
     'Melanie?'
     'Mmmmmm?'
     'Where are you now?'
     'Floating.'
     'In the tank?'
     'Floating.'
     'What do you feel?'
     'Water. But...'
     'But what?'
     'But that's fading too ...'
     'What else do you feel?'
     'Nothing.'
     'What do you see?'
     'Darkness.'
     'What do you hear?'
     'My ... heart ... beating, beating ... But ... that's fading too ...'
     'What do they want you to do?'
     The girl was silent.
     'Melanie?'
     Nothing.
     With sudden urgency, Laura said, 'Melanie, don't drift away from me. Stay with me.'
     The girl stirred and breathed, though shallowly, and it was as though she had come back from the faraway and lightless shore of the river that flowed darkly between this world and the next.
     'Mmmmmm.'
     'Are you with me?'
     'Yes,' the girl said, but so quietly that the spoken word was barely more than a shadow of the thought.
     'You're in the tank,' Laura said. 'It's like it always is in the tank ... except that I'm there with you this time: a safety line, a hand to grasp. You understand? Now ... floating. Feeling nothing, seeing nothing, hearing nothing ... but why are you there?'
     'To learn to ...'
     'What?'
     '... to let go.'
     'Let go of what?'
     'Everything.'
     'I don't understand, honey.'
     'Let go. Of everything. Of me.'
     'They want you to learn to let go of yourself? What does that mean, exactly?'
     'Slip out.'
     'Out where?'
     'Away ... away ... away ...'
     Laura sighed with frustration and tried a different tack. 'What are you thinking?'
     An even colder and more haunting note entered the child's voice. 'The door ...'
     'The door to December?'
     'Yes.'
     'What is the door to December?'
     'Don't let it open! Keep it shut !' the girl cried.
     'It's shut, honey.'
     'No, no, no! It's going to come open. I hate it! Oh, please, please, help me, Jesus, Mommy, help me, Daddy, help me, don't do it, please, help me, I hate it when it comes open, I hate it!'
     Melanie was screaming now, and the muscles in her neck were taut. The blood vessels in her temples swelled and throbbed. In spite of this new agitation, she regained no color; if anything, she grew even more pale.
     The child was terrified of whatever thing lay beyond the door, and that terror was transmitted to Laura. She felt the skin prickle at the back of her neck and all the way down her spine.
    * * *
    With considerable admiration, Dan watched Laura calm and quiet the frightened girl.
     The session had wound his own nerves so tight that he felt as if he might pop apart like a self-destructing clockwork mechanism.
     To Melanie, Laura said, 'Okay. Now ... tell me about the door to December.'
     The girl was reluctant to reply.
     'What is it, Melanie? Explain it to me. Come on, honey.'
     In a hushed voice, the child said, 'It's like ... the window to yesterday.'
     'I don't understand. Explain.'
     'It's like ... the stairs ... that go only sideways ... neither up nor down ...'
     Laura looked at Dan.
     He shrugged.
     'Tell me more,' Laura said to the girl.
     Her voice rising and falling in an eerie rhythm, never too loud, often too soft, the girl said, 'It's like ... the cat ... the hungry cat that ate itself all up. It's starving. There's no food for it. So ... it starts chewing on the tip of its own tail. It begins eating its tail ... chewing higher ... higher and faster ... until the tail is all gone. Then ... then it eats its own hindquarters, and then its middle. It keeps on eating and eating, gobbling itself up ... until it's eaten every last bit of itself ... until it's even eaten its own teeth ... and then it just ... vanishes. Did you see it vanish? How could it vanish? How could the teeth eat themselves? Wouldn't at least one tooth be left? But it isn't. Not one tooth.'
     Sounding as puzzled as Dan felt, Laura said, 'That's what they want you to think about when