The art of an unfinished ending

Most stories make a promise: stay and something will be resolved. Bedtime stories can make a different promise—that nothing essential depends on your attention.

An unfinished ending is not an accident here. The door may remain unopened. The path may continue past the lighthouse. A character may decide that tomorrow is soon enough.

The reader is free to leave before the final paragraph. In Endless Wandering, that is not abandoning the story. It is the story working as intended.