In between the back gardens of the houses on the street I live on and the houses on the next street behind my street there is a laneway, but this laneway was never of any real use, well at least not of any use to me as at the end of my back garden there is a seven foot high brick wall so there is no way to enter this lane way unless I climb this seven foot high wall and there is no point in doing that. Well things changed somewhat about eight days ago, as I write this, and I have absolutely no explanation for it.

When I went out into the back yard on that day, eight days ago, I was more than surprised to find that there was a wooden door at the end of the garden. It was right smack in the middle of the brick wall. It had never been there before; there had always just been nothing but the brick wall. The door was covered in writing from many different languages. Some of these writings looked as if they were written in ink while others seemed carved into the door.

The largest of these writings was in Spanish. 'La puerta del Diablo' -- basically meaning 'the devil's gateway'. With languages never being a forte of mine, somehow, I was able to read all the foreign language writing on the door in the instant I first saw them. I can't explain how I was able to read and understand these languages, I just somehow was able to, and one statement on this door which basically spoke directly to me, strangely informed me that I was either the key to salvation or the key to destruction.

Key ... key ... speaking of which, I apparently didn't need one. All I had to do was to turn the knob handle and the door would open so that is what I did ... I opened the door and walked through. As I did so I almost fell, I felt extremely disorientated. It only took a moment or two though when I began to feel more normal, more myself, I would soon realize that things were nowhere near normal at all.

I was standing facing my house rather than standing out in the laneway I thought I had walked into, and when I turned to look, the door was no longer in the wall. Could I have been having some sort of daydream? I didn't think so, and I pinched myself to make sure.

A neighbour peered over the wall between our gardens and when he saw me his whole face immediately turned pale white just before saying 'holy cow man, it can't be you, you can't be here, you're dead' and he didn't waste any time in heading back into his house, I called out 'wait, what do you mean I'm dead'. My neighbour had gone inside and locked his door.

Things soon were to become all the more strange, I went inside my house and everything was not as I had left it only moments earlier. There were photos I didn't recognize, the carpets and wallpaper were all different, if this really was some sort of daydream then it was coming with one hell of a kick. That disorientated feeling I had when I walked through the door in the wall, a door that now was no longer in the wall, came over me again and I collapsed.

I awoke in hospital. A doctor asked me how I was feeling. I told him I felt fine which was an honest and true answer. He told me that was an amazing thing since I had been dead for close to three years. I told him about the door I had come across and the doctor informed me that there would be someone to come in and talk with me soon. I feared the worst, was I to be analyzed 'till the cows come home?

My neighbour came into see me asking as to how it was possible that I was and am alive. I told him about the door, and he told me about the last three years, and that I had died in an accident, an accident that never happened, well not for me anyway. I don't remember any such accident, indeed there hadn't been one. Another thing that I found somewhat strange was the date. It was the right date for that day, so I had not moved forward through time or anything like that.

If time travel could be ruled out as an explanation for what was going on, and if I could be sure that I indeed was not daydreaming then maybe I could consider that I may have entered some sort of parallel universe. I have always had an open mind so such a thing as travelling through time or to a parallel world does not seem such an impossibility to me, unlikely yeah, but not impossible.

Apparently in this parallel time or world or whatever it is, my hometown had been seriously going downhill in recent times. Crime had run rampant, and the town had become a place where basically no one cared about. This is all so far away to what it should be as far as I was an am concerned. My neighbour asked me if I would be interested with helping to rebuild the town, help turn it to the way of what I know it to be, the way I knew it before I walked through that door. I don't how anything about building or re-building anything let alone a whole town, so what can I do? What difference could I make?

Even though I am in hospital, I do feel fine, I wouldn't know if I were to spend more time here of not, still if I am here for some time or possibly for the rest of my life then perhaps, I should involve myself with improving the town.

Later that day by a time that the actual day had become night, I awoke still in the hospital. I could see the door, the door which temporarily had become part of a brick wall out my back garden. Only now this door appeared at a time or moment which screamed at me, telling me that I did not have to stay where I was.

If it is the same door then how is it here in the hospital and why hasn't anyone else noticed it? I could ask the same about how it first appeared to me. Anyhow, to think things through, with this door once more in front of me, I presume I could go back to normality and I could go right at that point, then and there in the hospital but I couldn't do that, could I? Not after what I had been told. Though there would be an accompanying thought, would I ever see this door again if I decide not to go through it on this particular moment?

What was it the door basically told me I was? ... I was either the key to salvation or the key to destruction.

If I stay, I aid the place I have come to, if I return to normality, I bring destruction along with me? I guess I could take this as a possible fact.

Apparently being the only one able to see this door, the only one to decipher anything with it, I was compelled to stay where I was, I knew it would take me back to where I belong as I also knew or felt that I would see it again, it's appearance at this point and place just gave me an option of what I should do and I wanted to do the right thing. I managed to get myself a good night's rest and when the morning came, the door had gone. No one knew any difference.

I was invited to attend a meeting in the town hall, having been given an all clear, I left the hospital and made my way to the town hall. When I arrived, I noticed the buzz of chatter and the exchange of opinion quickly change to a sound of total silence. Everyone was staring at me. I walked up to the front of the hall feeling as if I have made some sort of mistake. I shouldn't be here, but this is the point. I am supposed to be here. Some apparent force of nature has brought me here, so in the hush of the moment ... I began to speak.

'I don't know why I am here; I am told I am supposed to be dead, but I am not. Instead, I am here, wherever here is. See this town is not the town that I know and love except it isn't. It may be one and the same place, this place and the one I know, but it is vastly different to what I know this place can be.

... I have also been told that this town has been falling apart for quite some time and the people in it are feeling despondent, like there is a serious lack of energy in this town. This needs to change. I have been asked to help rebuild this place, but I don't know how. I bet all the people here in this room right now do have that know how ...

... I ask all of you who is gonna help me? Darkness has over-shadowed this town for far too long from what I hear. Do you know what? We can change that; we can add some light to this darkness. It may take time and effort but together we can make a difference. Who is gonna help me to turn on the light? Who is gonna help me change this town?'

Slowly at first and soon to quicken one by one people stood up saying 'I will', 'I will'. And as if an energy regained itself right in front of me, a rousing cheer began sounding out. This is incredible. Everything in all this is incredible.

Over the next week the town pulled together working well together, becoming a community again, a community that I knew it could be. I met with people I know, or at least their counterparts in this world and there was incredibility in that too.

The change that came in such a short period of time was awesome and incredible and once again the wooden door would appear to me. I told my neighbour that I didn't belong in this version of town; it was time for me to go. There was a lot more to be done but things had got started. My neighbour thanked me for what I had done, which was basically no more than give a speech to be honest, so off I went, and I walked through the door, I became disorientated and collapsed.

I awoke this morning in my own bed, and I know I am home, where I belong, but I am not sure if what I experienced was just a dream or if it had been something more. I can tell you it felt as real as anything I have ever experienced.

In the moment of putting all this down on paper, or on screen, I took a quick look out the back garden and what I thought I saw was this wooden door, covered in odd writing. I watched it disappear into the brick wall at the end of the garden, eight days had passed in time both in my everyday world and another to which I travelled to. And what I remember of those eight days is the time I spent in an alternate version of where I belong.

I somehow feel as if I will be called on again at some time or other. Where will that door take me to next?