The other two members of the expedition were men who had started a new company called DoorSherpas. This was their first journey as a team, but both claimed to have journeyed through different doors—Australia, Germany—and returned safely with rare plants to sell. Their promised services included protection from the unknown, setting up tents, carrying the biggest packs, first-aid and CPR certification, sabering off champagne corks, and discretion. Their original name had been Joe and Joe Explorers, but that was viewed as too down-market. Rebranding themselves as Sherpas, despite both men being originally from Ohio, added a layer of authority that lengthened their yearslong waiting list. One had gone through the door, not Australia but Michigan, when he was seventeen. He had been lonely and depressed and read speculation that going through the doors would change you if you survived. It felt like a low-key solution to all his issues. Either he would die in a way where he could not be saved, or he would be a different person.

On a bright Thursday, he drove the two hours and forty-five minutes to the door, stopping only to buy Takis in Detroit and wonder if he could convince any of the adults outside the gas station to buy him a forty for courage. When it was clear no one was interested in indulging a white kid’s desire for an Olde English, including one man yelling at him, “Get your Ferris Bueller motherfucker ass out of here,” he felt more than ready to see the door.

During the drive, Joe first tried to think of all the reasons he had to live. Listed off friends, family, but each name added to the list made him consider if those connections were even real. His parents were young and could have more kids if they wanted. His friends could be nice, but there was always a feeling that everything was superficial.

Did he truly know them? Did anyone even want to know him? All the girls he liked were out of his league, and at seventeen, that felt like one of reality’s immutable laws. Joe’s biggest crush, Lila (actually Lisa, but she had done a strategic rebranding in eighth grade), was currently getting made fun of because there was a rumor she had given one of the football guys head over spring break, just because she was bored. He listened to the same song he always liked to listen to, about being lost souls and maybe the only things in the universe that know anything are stars.

“I don’t want to be anything,” Joe said. It felt good and true in his mouth, so he said it again and again, until he wasn’t even fully aware his mouth was still saying it. Everything in the world felt brighter. A bug smashed on the windshield, green and iridescent. Its leftover splat was art.