درباره داستان صوتی انگلیسی I Am the Doorway از Stephen King :

“I Am the Doorway” is a short story written by Stephen King. The story was originally published in the March 1971 issue of Cavalier, and was later included in King’s own 1978 collection Night Shift and in the 2005 anthology Thrilling, Chilling Tales of Alien Encounters. A likely inspiration for the story was the Manned Venus Flyby, a NASA program where astronauts would have entered the mesosphere of Venus to study the planet, but was abandoned due to concern of danger and high prohibitive cost.

Plot Summary

Set in the near future, this story relates of a crippled ex-astronaut’s account named Artie and of the terrifying change he undergoes after being exposed to an alien mutagen during a space mission to Venus. Leading up to the story, Artie recalls how NASA has had multiple disappointments, some from failed missions but also from successful missions to the Moon and Mars which revealed nothing more than rocks and dust. The point of exposure is never specified, but likely suggested started with Cory, the narrator’s co-pilot, who ventured out of the shuttle to test a transmitter to Neptune. Arrving at Venus, Artie is horrified by what he sees, which he remarks as “a haunted house in the middle of deep space”. Returning home, an incorrect landing kills Cory and render Artie paraplegic, but he is able to become accustomed to his handicapped status as he received accolades in addition to “this wheelchair, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and a lot of money”. Some time after readjusting to Earth life, his primary mutation takes the form of numerous tiny eyes that cover his hands. These eyes act as the titular “doorway” for an alien intelligence, allowing it to see into our world, which, the man perceives, it fears and hates intensely.

Soon, the alien presence is not only able to see through this doorway, but take control of the man’s shattered body, using him to commit terrible murders, including those of a native boy. His friend Richard is the only man who knows the truth about the eyes, and when he begs him to expose the hand eyes, he does so, only for Richard to run in terror before being murdered.

In a desperate attempt to maintain his humanity, he douses his hands in kerosene and incinerates them, only to find out that once the doorway has opened, it cannot be so easily closed. He manages to make the alien presence go away for nearly seven years. Artie is never charged with either of the murders, as the boy’s death was chalked up to a lightning accident, and Richard was considered an eccentric among the community who likely moved away or found a woman. Artie recalls how he is starting to get Richard’s reputation as an odd duck as well, for it is rare that retired astronauts write letters to their Congressmen recommending against the use of taxpayer money for space exploration. He comments how space missions have resumed, and now there is talk of another manned Venus mission.

As to his earlier paraplegia, the protagonist adjusts to life with his dead eyes on the hands as he can write with them, shave with them, and even aim a shotgun at his mouth. He ends the story by saying he plans to commit suicide to spare Earth from any more horrors as “there is a ring of twelve golden eyes now around my chest”.

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