Korridorium

♫ The Trail­blaz­er’s Red-Let­ter Day ♫

---

45/398

“I enter the corridor”—today, as a vis­i­tor to the Kor­ri­do­rium, you can say that with total con­fi­dence. This time, friendly host­esses approach you to lead you to one of the many doors. Behind them, more cor­ri­dors await—and more doors—but those you’ll have to push open your­self.

Another vis­i­tor has entered with you: a man in a suit, clutch­ing a brief­case and look­ing a bit dazed. “I have no idea what I’m even doing here!” he tells you. A ban­ner hangs above three bistro tables where the host­esses wait; it reads: “What else to find?” One of them is already attend­ing to the man. “Yes, it’s quite easy to get lost here,” she says. “If you’re look­ing for some­thing spe­cific and don’t have much time, you should head through that nar­row door up front.” You notice it’s labeled “Vignette.” “Or here”—the friendly young lady points out a tiny, almost minia­ture door labeled “Fract”—“for the very short atten­tion span. Some pieces are no longer than a tweet—140 char­ac­ters or less,” she con­tin­ues.

“I’m inter­ested in con­stel­la­tions,” says the man with the brief­case, straight­en­ing his glasses.

“Then this might be the right door for you.” The man frowns at the sign: “Lists.” Yet, it seems to suit him; he shrugs, gives the lady a brief, thank­ful nod, and deci­sively turns the han­dle.

In the mean­time, another host­ess has noticed you. “How can I help you today?” she asks with a smile.

“Are there sto­ries here with plots and char­ac­ters? You know, actual short sto­ries?”

“Oh, yes,” the host­ess responds, ges­tur­ing toward a glass door labeled “Story” and the three behind it: “Clas­sic,” “Fan­tasy,” and “Sci-Fi.”

“What about clas­sic fan­tasy?” you ask, fur­row­ing your brow.

“Oh, yes—that could be mis­lead­ing, right,” the young lady says. “All short sto­ries with­out magic and futur­is­tic ele­ments, with­out bells and whis­tles, so to speak—that’s what ‘clas­sic’ stands for here.”

She starts to explain how dif­fi­cult it was to find the right key­words, but you get dis­tracted. A vis­i­tor carrying—strangely enough—an open umbrella printed with the words “(B)right as rain,” is ask­ing a host­ess for “spir­i­tual texts.” She is directed toward the doors labeled “Nous” and “Kōan.” “Nous” cov­ers every­thing involv­ing con­scious­ness, she’s told, while “Kōan” rep­re­sents East­ern wis­dom in the broad­est sense. “And what about, uh… love sto­ries?” the woman asks softly, as if she’s a lit­tle embar­rassed. There is a door for that too, fur­ther down the hall. Unsur­pris­ingly, it’s labeled “Romance.”

Before you can turn back to your own host­ess, a boy in a hoodie rolls in on a skate­board. He shoots a dis­dain­ful look at the cor­ri­dor from under his hood. A host­ess is on him in an instant. “Cory?” he asks. The host­ess shakes her head, smil­ing. “But you might find the answer behind this door.” She points to one labeled “Cory?” and then indi­cates the one next to it: “Meta.” “You might find more clues there. In any case, that’s where all the expla­na­tions about the Kor­ri­do­rium itself are kept.”

This gives you an idea. You ask the help­ful young lady about sto­ries involv­ing par­al­lel worlds—you’ve heard they are a recur­ring theme here.

“Oh, yes,” your host­ess smiles, “there’s a door for those, too. Please, fol­low me.” The door in ques­tion, labeled “PluriDim,” is at the very end of the cor­ri­dor. “I’m told it stands for ‘Pluridimensional’—multi-dimensional per­spec­tives.”

Intrigued, you read the sign on the door next to it: “Para­pher­na­lia”?

“Oh, yes,” the young lady nods. “That’s where we put every­thing that did­n’t fit any­where else—even things too strange for ‘Kafkaesque’ or ‘Sur­re­al­ist.’ ” She points to the door directly across from “Para­pher­na­lia.” “Kafka,” she says, “is sim­ply ‘K.’—but due to space con­straints, he’s been grouped with Sur­re­al­ism.” The door reads: “K. / Dada.”

Bet­ter not sub­ject myself to that, you think, mask­ing the thought with a polite smile. “But what if I’m specif­i­cally look­ing for things involv­ing labyrinths and the Mino­taur?”

“Oh, yes,” the host­ess says eagerly. “I should have real­ized. I saw the horns, of course, and knew imme­di­ately what a dis­tin­guished guest we had today.”

You snort a bit through your nos­trils; peo­ple usu­ally expect that sort of thing from you. Although you meant it to be friendly, the host­ess takes a cau­tious step back.

“Here,” she says, sound­ing slightly intim­i­dated. “This would be the door of your choice.” It bears the label: “Myth.”

“But that can also mean a lie—as in, ‘Oh, that’s just a myth!’ ” you point out crit­i­cally.

“Oh, yes,” the host­ess says, swal­low­ing hard. “But it’s cer­tainly not used in that sense here.”

“Well, I should hope not!” you retort, and swing the door open.

Para­pher­na­lia: