Doris the Doornail. (standard:fantasy, 1303 words)
Author: Oscar A Rat	Added: Jul 22 2020	Views/Reads: 1438/960	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Ever heard the saying, “Dead as a doornail”? Well, don’t you believe it. This is from a challenge when I mentioned I could base a story on almost anything.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


The human stood the completed door in a corner of the shop.  They could
see a lot of activity, and hear even more.  The best conversations were 
about humans that cast spells being found, and how they were killed.  
Witches, they were called. 

The very thought of it frightened Doris.  She had nightmares about them
cursing her, and putting her in a coffin.  Doris didn't want to be a 
coffin nail, spending her time rusting away and seeing nothing but 
dirt.  She didn't think dead witches even talked. 

After about a hundred years, Doris's house was burned down by Indians. 
She could remember the fierce-looking savages running around with 
sticks of fire.  It was the first time she saw a human killed, too. 

The Indians kidnapped the door and used it as a table in their camp for
a long time.  She was scared at first but found they weren't normally 
that bad and did take care of their nails.  The Indian kids played with 
her door, especially when it became old and scarred up. 

A long time later, soldiers came and killed the Indians, even the little
kids. 

“Sarge, alright if I throw this old door on the wagon?  It would make a
good worktable for the cook,”  Doris heard a soldier say. 

“If you got room, after all those souvenirs,”  someone replied. 

Doris could feel herself being picked up.  She felt a jolt as the door
was thrown into a horse-drawn wagon.  Bumpety, bump, and she was driven 
away. 

She spent years learning how soldiers worked.  They walked strange,
yelling “Hup, two, three, four.  Hup, two, three, four.”  She never did 
learn what a “hup” was.  The cook did clean the door off, sand it, and 
polish it like new, though. 

Later, the soldiers left the door on a pile of trash for a few years. 
Eventually, a man dressed like a farmer came and checked the pile over. 
 He used a hammer to pull Doris and her friends out of the door.  
Putting them in a box, he took them home with him. 

Doris lay around in the box for many more years.  After that, she ended
up in several more doors, for different amounts of time.  They all 
seemed to be about the same.  Not very adventurous after the first 
door, though. Only family homes. 

After all those doors, Doris kind of hoped that she could find some
other kind of employment.  She was tired of being part of either a door 
or a table.  There must be a lot of jobs for a good nail like her, she 
thought. 

Now, here she and her door were part of another table.  Eventually
another human came to the junkyard and pulled her out of that too.  She 
was glad to leave those uppity carburetor's.  They thought they were 
too fancy to talk to a mere nail.  What they didn't know was that Doris 
would outlast them by far. 

When the human got Doris home, he took her downstairs and picked up a
hammer.  That time, it didn't hurt as much, as he used some kind of 
soft block between her and the hammer as he carefully straightened her 
back.  Then he soaked her in something that took the rust off her. 

It felt good to get her first personal attention in many years, even her
first as an individual, as he polished Doris with a soft cloth.  Except 
for a few rust pits in her body, Doris looked almost brand new.  She 
was ecstatic when she found her new home was to be in a glass case at a 
museum.  Not only that, but she had other nails her age to talk to, 
including her old friend, Jacob. 

The Happy Ending.


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