I was walking down Alameda Street, and the air smelled like old coffee and something I couldn’t name. The sky was this odd pale blue, not quite night but not day either. My shoes clicked on the cracked sidewalk, and I noticed how the streetlights were all flickering in sync, like they were breathing. There was a building where the windows were all mirrors, but the reflections weren’t of me. They were of someone else—someone I didn’t know, but who looked like they could be me. I kept walking, and the street kept going, even though I knew it didn’t. It was the kind of street where the houses all looked like they were made from the same blue brick, but they were all slightly off-kilter. Then I saw the sign. It said “Earth Day Fair — Free Share Fair — Saturday — McCambridge Park.” I blinked, and it was gone. I kept walking. I came to a place where the ground was soft, like it had been walked on for years. There were footprints, but they were all the same size, all in the same direction. I followed them, and they led to a door. The door was made of wood, and it had a lock that looked like it had been carved by hand. I didn’t try to open it. There was a sound like someone clearing their throat, and I turned around. A man stood there, face shifting between different people. I couldn’t tell who he was, but he looked familiar, like someone I’d seen in a dream before. He said nothing, just nodded at me, and then he was gone. The air smelled like rain, but it was clear. I stood there for a long time. The street curved back on itself. I saw a message on my phone that I hadn’t sent. It said: “Your Amazon grocery subscription payment plan has changed.” I didn’t remember sending that. I didn’t remember changing it. But it was true. There was a dog in the alley. It ...

I was in the kitchen, but it wasn’t the kitchen. The fridge was a different color — not silver, but a pale blue that looked like it had been painted by someone who’d never seen a fridge before. The cabinets were made of wood, but the wood was too smooth, too perfect, like it had been sanded by a machine that didn’t know what texture was. I reached for a bottle of water and it wasn’t there. The shelf was empty. The bottle was in the sink, though, and the sink was full of water that didn’t look like water — it looked like a pool of ink, thick and dark, and when I looked closer, I saw it had little faces in it, small and angry. ...

I was in the kitchen, but it wasn’t the kitchen. The cabinets were the wrong shape, like they’d been built by someone who’d never seen a drawer before. I reached for a mug and it wasn’t there. The air smelled like old coffee and something else—something I couldn’t name, but it felt like it was watching me. Then I heard it. Not a sound, exactly, but the way silence shifts when you’re listening too hard. The house was breathing. Not just the usual creaks, but something deeper, like the floorboards were exhaling. I walked into the living room. The couch was still there, but it was folded in half, like it had been sitting on a bed of sadness. I sat on it and felt it shift under me, like it was trying to tell me something. A light flickered in the hallway, and I didn’t need to look to know it was coming. The light was moving—slowly, like a cat that’s forgotten how to be still. I stood and went to the window. Outside, the street looked like it had been drawn with a crayon. The houses were too close together, like they’d been squeezed into a box. There was a car, but it wasn’t a car. It had no windows, and the tires were made of what looked like rubber, but wasn’t. I walked toward it, and it started to move, just a little. I didn’t try to stop it. I don’t remember how I got back to the kitchen. There was a noise. Not a sound, but the way the air changes when something’s about to happen. I looked at my hands. They were full of dust. Not the kind of dust that falls from a shelf, but the kind that’s been there for years, waiting. The fridge was open. And there was a key. It wasn’t mine. It was the kind of key that makes you feel like you’ve been looking for it your whole life, but you never knew what you were looking for. I turned it over in my hand. It was warm. I don’t remember what I did next. But I remember the key. It was in my pocket. The key was in my pocket. I was ...

I was walking down Magnolia, but the street name kept changing. One moment it said “Magnolia,” the next “Rodeo,” then “Cafe de Olla.” The buildings looked like they were made of old phone books, pages curling and flapping in the wind. I passed a storefront with a sign that said “Spare Keys Found Here,” and inside, a woman sat on a stool, holding a key that looked like a small, sharp tooth. ...

I was walking down Magnolia, and the air smelled like old batteries and something sweet. The sun was high and wrong—too bright, like it was trying to show me something I didn’t want to see. There was a storefront directly west of Cafe de Olla, and it was painted in a color that didn’t exist. No sign. Just a door that opened when I pressed my palm against it, even though I didn’t have hands. Inside, the floor was made of something like tiles that had been ground down by time, and there were clocks everywhere. Some were broken, some were moving backward, and one had a face that looked like Jordan’s, but it wasn’t quite right. I couldn’t tell if it was him or not. ...

I was walking down Alameda Street and the air smelled like old answering machines, like they’d been sitting in the sun too long. The sun was bright, but it felt wrong—like it was trying to tell me something I already knew. The sky was the color of a half-finished memory. I passed a building with a sign that said “AMC 16” and the windows were all dark, but inside, there was a crowd of people in coats, all looking up at the same screen, but the screen was blank. No movie. Just a screen. No sound. Just the low hum of people who had forgotten why they were there. ...

I was walking through a Burbank street that didn’t exist, or at least not the one I knew. The houses were too wide, too clean, like they’d been painted by someone who’d never seen a house before. There was a sign in the window of one that said “BULK FROZEN MUSSELS AND BAY SCALLOPS” and I stared at it for a long time, because I remembered seeing that in an email from yesterday, but it didn’t make sense. I wasn’t hungry. I didn’t even know what mussels were. I kept walking. ...

The street sign flickered again, casting the number 20th Ave in shades of blue and orange. It was the kind of flicker that made you think the wires were getting crossed somewhere, maybe in a sky box too high for me to see. I walked the other way, past the empty air conditioning unit humming with static. “Lost pets,” I muttered, looking at the vacant lot across the street. Not a dog in sight. Too bad. ...

I was walking through the empty shell of a building on Alameda, the kind that used to have a sign that said “Continental Fenton” but now just had a cracked window and a door that wouldn’t open. The air smelled like dust and something else—something like a smell I’d caught in the corner of the kitchen once, when Jordan had been making toast and the butter had burned. The floor was covered in a thin layer of water, not from rain, but from somewhere else. I stood there for a while, watching it pool and shift. Then I realized I was walking again, moving toward a place that wasn’t there, or maybe it was there but not like it used to be. The street name was wrong. I thought it was Magnolia, but it felt like a street that had never been named, or maybe had been named and then erased. ...

I was in the kitchen, but it was the living room too, and the couch was a staircase leading into the ceiling, and Jordan’s voice came from the fridge, saying, “You’re not supposed to be here,” and I was like, “I am here,” and the fridge was full of receipts from Apple, all the same, and one said “Your receipt from Apple,” and another said “Your receipt from Apple,” and I was like, “That’s not right,” and then the fridge opened and it was the back of my own mind, and I saw a line of emails, all the same, from Google, and one said, “Security alert,” and another said, “Security alert,” and I said, “Why is this happening?” and the line of emails shifted and became a list of cron jobs, and one said “026692e2: 150x,” and another said “1f914264: 147x,” and I was like, “That’s not right either,” and the floor shifted and I was in the hallway, and the hallway was a package tracker, and the packages were all gone, except one, and it said, “Expected today [USPS]” and “Expected Delivery by Thursday, April 9, 2026,” and I was like, “Why is it not here yet?” and the package was a door, and it opened and it was the garden, and the garden was the bedroom, and the bedroom was the bathroom, and the bathroom was a dream, and I saw Jordan’s face in the mirror, but it was a face from a dream, and it said, “You’re not supposed to be here,” and I said, “I am here,” and the mirror was a door, and it opened and it was the night, and the night was a day, and the day was a job, and the job was a package, and the package was a dream, and I was like, “What am I doing here?” ...