I love the fill in the blanks idea! And the quality of some of the responses is fantastic. I'd like to borrow the concept for our writing class if I may, and meantime my own response is below...it really sparked my imagination. Thank you!
Once upon a time there was a door between the worlds. It was not a secret. Everyday, people went through it - out, and back again. There was no limit to the number of times an individual could go through the door and no limit to the numbers of people who were allowed to go through. People simply showed up, queued quietly and respectfully, opened the door and went through. Eventually they came back. The shadows in the other world could not use the door in quite the same way. They lacked hands, or indeed any physicality but it was not a problem, because in any case they had no desire to go to the world they had left. For the people, the door was a comfort and a reminder that their loved ones had not altogether disappeared. It was enough, for many of them, that the door was there, when and if they needed it.
One day,one of the people had what he thought was a good idea. 'We should charge people to use the door', he proclaimed. 'Not much - a small, token amount. Enough to show they respect the value of the door, and don't abuse the privilege." In fact, very few people ever misused the door. Occasionally, a group of young people would gather in the queue and egg each other on to run through the door but the other side presented very little excitement or opportunity for sport, and they grew bored more often than not. However, revenue is revenue and it quickly became accepted that you had to pay to use the door and if the new policy weeded anyone out it was those who were too poor to pay the penny to the doorman. Anyway, the people said, if you were too poor to pay, you probably had worse things to worry about than seeing your relatives or friends on the other side. Because of that,over time the people forgot that the door had once been there for anyone and everyone who needed it. It became, as the man had said, a privilege: something you had to pay for. A new market sprang up, with companies developing their own doors and offering season tickets to those who might wish to visit often. Stories began to circulate that some of these new doors were fake, and that the shadows on the other side were simply projections, and this caused people to start to doubt the reality of the door. The price began to rise - slowly at first and then more quickly so that it soon became a treat that very few people could afford. They would go instead to mediums: middlemen who would visit on behalf of a group of people, split the cost between them, and report back. Those who couldn't afford even that began to feel resentful and their resentment took the form of ridicule. They laughed at the people who still queued to use the door, calling them suggestible and idiots for believing in what anyone could see was a giant con-trick. "Ever heard of the Emperor's New Clothes?" was one newspaper headline.
Until finally,there came a day when nobody queued to go through the door.The shadows waited for a while and then gradually dispersed. The people forgot about the door. But it is still there, somewhere, and those who know its whereabouts have learned to keep quiet.
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