Office Call

Dr. Rawlings has seen every kind of delusion walk through his office door. Patients who believe they can fly, patients who claim they’re not from Earth, patients whose stories unravel the moment they’re questioned. So when Charles T. Moore arrives with a calm explanation of his breakthrough, the doctor is ready to label it and move on. But Moore isn’t asking for validation—he’s asking for help. He says his equations have done more than describe the universe. They’ve opened it. Doors are no longer just doors. Behind them could be Mars, deep space, or something no human mind was meant to encounter. And worse, he can’t control when it happens. At first, it sounds like another carefully constructed fantasy. Moore speaks clearly, logically, even modestly. Yet his details refuse to collapse under pressure. He doesn’t just describe impossible events—he reacts to them with the kind of fear that doesn’t come from imagination. As the session unfolds, the doctor finds himself drawn into a situation he can’t easily dismiss. Moore insists he has already crossed the boundary between worlds. He describes encounters that leave behind questions no diagnosis can erase. And when the appointment ends, something small—but undeniable—remains behind. Dr. Rawlings has spent his career separating truth from illusion. Now he’s faced with something that doesn’t fit either category. If Moore is right, then every door in the world is no longer safe. And if he’s wrong, then the doctor himself may already be slipping into the same madness. Charles E. Fritch wrote numerous science fiction and suspense stories that appeared in magazines such as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. His work often blends everyday settings with unsettling disruptions that challenge what characters believe to be real.