Short stories inspired by pictures of abandoned doors and gateways. This series of stories is a little different from the usual that I have published. They were inspired by pictures of abandoned doors or gateways that I found on Pinterest. Five of these stories were included in my book maps for lost places. I didn't know then that I would want or need to continue writing these stories. I thought it was a one-shot. I was wrong. Maybe I'll never finish it. Maybe it will go through cycles of being abandoned and being picked up again.When I wrote each story is significant to me, because they are semi autobiographical. They provide a snapshot into what issues I was working on at the time. Often I write about these issues in a sort of code, woven out of the language of speculative fiction. This is why the written date and the posted date are included. If there is only a posted date, the piece was written fairly closely to when I posted it. I've arranged these in chronological order as a sort of scrapbook of my internal life. These span a period from early June 2018 to late January 2019.Writing fiction helps me to learn facts. If I have a difficult issue in my life, something that I've been wrestling with, writing a story about it helps me to either understand it or make peace with it. Often a resolution is reached by the end of the story. Through writing, I will learn how to make the situation better - either through doing something differently, or changing my perception about it. Some situations can't be resolved - they are over and done with, so I can't make the ending change. However, I learned in The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel A. van der Kolk that the human soul needs resolution. Unfinished things gnaw at us. So it is OK to write a new ending to the story. The story titled "Like calls to like" in my book maps for lost places is an example of this. It started out as a true story, and then halfway through transforms to fiction. The story "Invisible house True/Story" does the same. This is in my book The Invisible House Series. Even though it isn't true, a story helps our souls accept the medicine that is offered to feel healed and whole. I intentionally stopped writing these after I finished "Siamese Souls". I knew that was the end of this book. It turned out this was harder on me than I realized. There are things I need to understand using this practice. I am certain there will be a volume 2.Some of these stories almost didn't get to be seen. I'd written them and not posted them. Perhaps they were too personal, too intimate. Names have been changed to protect the guilty. So you will notice that some stories have posted dates after late January, when I posted "Siamese Souls". However, they were written before it. I decided to include them in part to achieve my goal of having at least 25 stories in this book. I also included them to show that all feelings need to be expressed, even the unattractive ones. Everything in this book was originally posted in my blog, betsybeadhead.com. They have been slightly updated and polished up for publication here. If there is a discrepancy, the version here is my preferred version.