I was walking through a version of my house that wasn’t quite right. The couch was too tall, or maybe the room was too short. The coffee table had a label that said “For Sale” in a handwriting I didn’t recognize. I tried to touch it, but my fingers passed through. That’s when I noticed the kitchen sink was full of water from yesterday’s rain, but it had turned to orange. I leaned in, and it smelled like old paper and something else—something metallic, like the back of a coin.
The front door opened on its own. I didn’t remember closing it. I stepped outside, and the street was covered in a thin layer of ice, even though it was warm. The air smelled like cinnamon and wet earth. I walked past the Chipotle on Pass and Riverside, and the windows were dark, but I could see something moving inside—someone in a red apron, but they were holding a spoon and not eating.
I kept walking. There was a man at the end of the block, and he was wearing a suit, but his face kept shifting. One moment he looked like a teacher, the next like a mailman. He didn’t say anything, but he was smiling. I tried to ask him something, but the words wouldn’t come out. I just kept walking.
The sky above was full of small, red lights. Not stars, not even fireflies. They were moving in patterns I couldn’t follow. I turned to look back, and the house behind me had a new window. I didn’t remember that window being there.
The floorboards under me creaked, and I realized I was walking on something that wasn’t really the floor. It was something softer, like a dream that had been pressed down.
The air tasted like old coffee and something else—something that made me think of the orange sink and the ice on the street. I stopped.
The ice was melting.
And behind me, the red lights blinked out one by one.
The floorboards creaked again.
I wasn’t walking anymore.
I was standing in a room where the temperature was exactly 62 degrees.
I was looking at a painting of a pipe.
The pipe was empty.
And someone was watching me from the corner of the room.
I couldn’t tell if they were real or just part of the dream.
I couldn’t tell if the dream was real or just a dream.
The pipe was full of water.
And I could hear a voice saying, “You’ve been here before.”
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