Nowadays, it’s easy to see Stephen King’s name and have a conceived notion of his legacy. He remains well into old age one of the most prolific authors of his generation, producing masterpieces that dig under people’s skin and recontextualizes fears we’ve long taken for granted. In this Short Stop series, I will explore a period before he was the icon we know and love. Even with a handful of bestsellers to his name, his status had yet to cement. That is why I’ve chosen to take a look at his first story collection, “Night Shift,” and hopefully get a glimpse into the writer taking shape, before his style was cemented into a cultural touchstone. Was he always the master of horror, or was there a simpler time when he was as messy and weird as the rest of us? All it takes is turning the page to find out.
In my experience, King’s work has felt grounded in one specific way. No matter how supernatural the other elements are, he’s ultimately fascinated by exploring this phenomenon as it relates to Earth and, most often, the American northeast. It makes sense as a Maine author, though it’s been fascinating to see him branch out and include the Midworld of “The Dark Tower” novels, which gives him access to different worlds. Even still, they’re all very similar to the world the reader inhabits. For the first time, but not the last, King has decided to push himself far from his comfort zone and produced “I Am the Doorway”: a sci-fi story that takes him where no other story I’ve read by him has gone before… Venus.
Right off the bat, something is disorienting about seeing the master of horror create an astronaut narrative. Despite his multidimensional approach to fiction, there has never been a time when I’d imagine he’d place his protagonist on a spaceship overlooking the planets and describe them with the wonder of Carl Sagan. Given my unfamiliarity with this type of story, it’s hard for me to immediately grasp whether this is a great version of the space travel gone wrong genre, or if I’m justified in finding it a bit lacking compared to the humanity of the other stories in “Night Shift” so far.
This could be a result of the story lacking a complicated sense of pathos. King has written a visceral piece of pulp meant more to play like an itch under your skin that will not go away. It’s supposed to drive you further and further towards madness. There isn’t anything else needed to explore beyond the concern of the unknown. He does a good job with that paranoia and how it relates to protagonist Arthur’s job as an astronaut. The ending may be the logical finale, but it reflects how cheap the story is. There’s no lesson taken away. It’s ultimately a man experiencing his final days alive.
That isn’t a bad thing. I think back to “Jerusalem’s Lot,” which had a similar dive into madness that felt overcomplicated. If there’s a difference, the inaugural story had enough space to build interiority and make the reader understand the central obsession. Even in “Graveyard Shift,” I’d argue the slow escalation allowed for sympathies by the time of inevitable disaster. For “I Am the Doorway,” it merely happens. There’s no deeper thought put into resolving the matter. Given its limited space as a short story, this isn’t an egregious accomplishment, though a disappointing one for those not drawn to explicit body horror. This knows how to leave a memorable image and nothing else.
The initial plot sounds promising thanks to the suggestion that Arthur might have killed someone. Before the reader becomes aware of what “the doorway” is, there’s a concern that he has psychosis, which causes him to violently dissociate. Making things more interesting is that he’s wheelchair bound, trapped both physically and mentally by some unknown force. What has this helpless man done to warrant such a tormented fate?
A recurring motif appears in the bandages on his hands. Throughout the 20 pages, there’s a constant need to wrap them and question whether his ailments will go away. If this story has one memorable image, it’s present in eyeballs that grow from his fingertips, overwhelming his body and connecting him to a different world. He would ask for the space program to look into his problem, but there’s shame around the matter, especially as there are casualties involved that could make him seem guiltier. At one point, King even jokes in typical morbid fashion about a man dying on the way to getting coffee, reflecting how futile this story will see mortality.
Arthur received these wounds during a space flight to the planet Venus. I’m not an expert on outer space fiction. However, the common sentiment I’ve seen is to explore planets further away from the sun, notably Mars. Maybe it’s because King didn’t want to build on an existing archetype like the Martian, but he went the other direction and chose a planet in a more miserable corner of the solar system. With Venus being the second-closest planet to the sun, it’s easy to understand why it’s a desolate, hot world where nothing can grow. It seems illogical that anybody could survive there, but that’s part of the fun. It’s so close to a billowing inferno that it can’t help but evoke the idea of a living human visiting hell.
The allure is evident. Given where space travel was in 1971 when this story was published in Cavalier Magazine, it’s not hard to fantasize about what mysteries lie out there. It’s maybe less plausible than anything in “Night Surf,” but there’s a certain mentality that believes in extraterrestrial life. NASA was only a few years removed from walking on the moon, and this could be seen as the golden era of space flight. I’m sure there were equal parts discoveries and fears that emerged. Aliens had long been a fixture in pop culture, but now there was a plausibility that mankind could bring back some sort of mutagen and infect the larger population. It’s interesting because if this were a decade prior, I would wager that the alien does the bulk of the travel.
Another thing to consider is that King has long been fascinated by how humanity is connected. Even if “I Am the Doorway” works as a standalone entry, there’s subtext that feels similar to “The Dark Tower” idea of ka-tet, which are people joined together on a shared mission. They’re able to transcend dimensions and sometimes share the same body. A major difference is that King is often more nuanced in his later work, building ideas that enhance emotion. With “I Am the Doorway,” it’s more of a catchall boogeyman who has overtaken somebody and will stop at nothing to drive them insane.
The most evident way can be seen in how Arthur relates to the mutagen when he returns to Earth. Along with hiding his wounds in shame, there’s a need to not let the new force take control of him. He could talk to his fellow astronaut about the experience, but he will never know what this one mistake has done. His life can move on without conflict. As for Arthur, he’s becoming so consumed that by the end, he finds himself nothing but a body of eyes, even on his chest, becoming the doorway between Earth and Venus.
What do these eyes see? For Arthur, it’s a traumatic reminder of what he left behind. What should’ve been a mundane discovery is now a vision of pain, where he is haunted by the sight of hellfire. There is no peace. Maybe this is also an allegory for the Vietnam War and the horrors experienced overseas. Whatever the doorway is supposed to actually be, it can’t help but remove Arthur from the moment. He’s no longer living. If anything, he’s merely trying to calm his nerves long enough to have two minutes of peace.
Reading responses to the story, I found most of them were enamored. As a work of visual storytelling, it has a lot to offer – especially for those into body horror. Even so, the interdimensional angle is something I’ve preferred in King’s other work and feel was given more intention. Here it’s mostly a salacious plot device that drives readers to an ending that, while earned, doesn’t feel terribly shocking. If judged by the prior stories in “Night Shift,” it’s lacking that extra pull to make it linger. “Graveyard Shift” works because there’s irony in the annoying character getting his comeuppance. Here, Arthur is a tragic bystander who has no choice but to kill himself, far removed from the humanity that he once embodied.
I’ll accept there’s something existential overwhelming the senses. For those with fears of becoming compromised by outside forces, the horrors at the center are very real. The inconsequential nature of certain details is intentional. When you’re struggling to survive, nothing else matters but overcoming your ailment. Some are strong enough to keep living, but at what point do you give up, knowing the fight is unwinnable? It may simply be that I’m not one for body horror in its more grotesque fashion, but this story doesn’t fully land solely because it feels obvious and doesn't provide a lot of ideas that haven’t been done better elsewhere and, arguably, by sci-fi writers more in tune with this style of prose.
As with every other story so far, “I Am the Doorway” would go on to have many film productions. A major difference is that this is the first to have predominantly worked in shorts. There’s not a lot of substance worth building over, making it easy to create a quick blast of visceral uncertainty. There was a 2017 Czech production shot entirely in first person. Other versions included a British version in 2015 that was part of the Dollar Baby program. The most acclaimed version came in 2018 from Simon Pearce, who won multiple awards, including the Phillip K. Dick Best Sci-Fi Short of 2018. The brevity of the source material may explain why nobody has thought to expand to a full-length feature.
If judged solely on whether this caused the synapses to fire, then “I Am the Doorway” is another success. However, I found it to be a bit too far out of his comfort zone and centered on material that felt more novel. At best, it captures ideas that his later work would detail better, especially as he gained a grasp on interdimensional plotting. For now, it’s pulpy and strange with some of the writer’s most intense and jarring descriptions so far. It’s by no means a favorite, but it can’t help but create an image that sticks with the reader, demanding they ruminate. This may be the most existential piece yet, filled with dread as the inevitable emerges and reveals the harsh truth that there’s no other option. Now that’s scary.
Coming Up Next: “The Mangler”
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