Locals brought her broken latches, splintered frames, and hinges fused with rust, hoping she might "mend the stories.
2025.08.10
在那個沿海小鎮，珍以「遺忘之門的守護者」聞名。她的工作室昏暗而帶著香氣，滿是雪松的木屑與海港的鹹風，牆上掛滿了來自無人記得之處的門。這些門的重量，不在木頭，而在記憶。
她只需輕輕撫過門板，便能感受到曾在屋內迴盪的笑聲，或是有人永遠離去後留下的靜默。鎮上的人會帶著破損的門鎖、裂開的門框、與鏽蝕的鉸鏈來找她，希望她能「修補故事」。某個雨夜，一位漁夫抱來一扇不比孩子胸口大的小門。「在我的漁網裡纏住的。」他說。那木頭色澤淺淡，但木紋微微脈動，彷彿還有生命。珍沿著邊緣描摹，立刻感受到一股湧流——陽光、麵包的香氣、孩子的哼歌。然而，也有一抹陰影，像暴風雨前的海面般沉重。
珍整晚忙碌，打磨、上油，並輕聲對木頭低語，彷彿在哄它呼吸。天亮時，門把閃現微光。當她轉動門把時，一股溫暖的風湧入工作室，帶來家的氣息。漁夫眼中泛淚，踏進門中——隨即消失。
自那天起，珍將那扇小門留在工作台旁，不再打開，只為提醒自己：每一道門檻，都是抉擇——留在已知，還是邁向無從記起之地。
Jane was known in the small coastal town as the Keeper of Forgotten Doors. Her workshop, a dim and fragrant space filled with cedar dust and the salt-breeze of the harbor, was lined with doors collected from places no one remembered. Each had a weight, not of wood, but of memory.
She could run her hand along a panel and feel the tremor of laughter that once echoed in its room, or the press of silence that lingered after someone left forever. Locals brought her broken latches, splintered frames, and hinges fused with rust, hoping she might “mend the stories.”
One rainy night, a fisherman arrived carrying a small door no bigger than a child’s chest. “Found it tangled in my nets,” he said. The wood was pale, but the grain pulsed faintly, as if alive. Jane traced its edges and felt a rush—sunlight, bread baking, a child’s humming. But there was a shadow too, a heaviness like the sea before a storm.
Jane worked through the night, sanding and oiling, whispering to the wood as though coaxing it to breathe. By dawn, the door’s handle glimmered faintly. When she turned it, a warm wind swept into her workshop, carrying the scent of home. The fisherman, eyes wet, stepped through—and vanished.
From then on, Jane kept that little door near her workbench, not to open again, but to remind her that every threshold holds a choice: to stay in the known, or to step into the unremembered.
