I am unsure about the truth of the following events, and I recommend a similar degree of scepticism - if, of course, accompanied by a sizeable amount of naïvite so these words do not seem as outlandish.
I must begin by clarifying that my town is rather small. It’s hardly larger than a village, in all honesty. Due to this, everyone knows one another; I could tell you the profession of all my neighbours, their neighbours, and their neighbour’s neighbour (I’d continue, but there are no more people than that).
One good evening - or, rather, one cloudy evening that wasn’t rainy yet - I found myself walking through the nearby woods. It’s a habit I’ve kept ever since I could walk. Alone, or with company of any variety, I’ve always been one for walks. That’s to say that I know very, very well that pathway, and could recite its features like one recalls the alphabet.
So, one could imagine my complete bafflement when, that evening, I found a cabin. I could see the lights through the closed curtains, and a thin string of smoke snaking its way up from a chimney. This was a cabin I’d never noticed, and at a spot where the only interesting feature would otherwise be a mossy rock that resembles Napoleon.
I confess, my curiosity overcame me, and I approached the cabin. I knocked on the door, but when given no answer, I pushed the door open. Understand, it was unlocked! Whoever lived here should’ve been less interesting and more careful if they didn’t want others intruding!
Inside, it was awfully austere: A hearth, a reading chair, a lamp for the reading chair, and little else. Across the room, however, was a closed door that, given the exterior of the cabin, would’ve led outside.
“Terribly rude to barge in,” said an elderly man. I jumped, startled, to which he shrugged so as to say ‘that’s deserved.’ He began brewing some tea in a kitchenette (Which, I could’ve sworn, was not there before)
“Don’t just stand there, go on and open it,” he said after a moment, pointing to the door. I did as told, maybe in some attempt to make up for my lack of politeness.
I do not know how to properly express what this door lead to, but I shall attempt it nonetheless: A hallway, but one that wasn’t quite so. Perfectly straight, a straightness that ignored the Earth’s curve, and with a length that defied all dimension. And on both sides, uncountable doors, each with a sign on their surface.
I read the nearest one of those signs, to my left, which read “12th gift; Birthdays and Holidays.” Oh, how I dread my own curiosity, I was completely unable to stop myself from opening it!
But what lay inside baffled me almost as much as everything else that had happened in the last five minutes. It was a small, square room, with a table in the middle. On the table was a toy train. The toy train I was gifted on my 12th birthday, and the toy train I had lost by my 13th.
“It’s merely the same model,” I thought. That is, of course, the logical explanation of such an outlandish coincidence. And yet, upon checking the third wheel of the locomotive, I found it chipped in precisely the same annoying way my gift was. This was, by all measures, the same object.
I rushed to the next door, one labelled “February 21st; Broadcasts and Music.” It was an identical room, with a radio this time. It played a song I had heard years ago, and was never able to find again.
Then came the next door, and the next, and the next one to that. I don’t remember their labels, but I can affirm they all were identical rooms with inexplicable, identical objects I remembered fondly. I must’ve spent hours combing through doors and relieving past moments before I returned to the entrance room, where the elderly man was waiting with two teacups.
“What a truly wonderful house you have,” is all I could manage to say.
“This isn’t my house. I’m a guest too. I’m just yet to leave.”
“A guest? But…”
“If I open the door, it’s my stuff. If you do, it’s yours. I can’t say goodbye, not yet.”
“How long have you been here?” I got a sense it was rude to ask
“Like I’d know, or like it matters. When you exit, it’ll be five minutes after you came in. And where you came in, too, even if the house moves. I get to linger here for as long as I’d like.” He paused, considered his words, and promptly decided he could be blunt. “I’d rather you don’t do the same, though. I find others annoying.”
“Ah, I better get going, then.”
“Do make sure you’re done. I’ve never seen the same guest twice.”
I looked at the hallway, that itemized archive of everything that could cause nostalgia. It was nice to have relieved it, but I had other things to do. That, and the man seemed to have little patience left.
The rest of my walk was consumed by that house. A house that had showed me all I wanted to remember, a house that moved and did the same for others. A part of me wishes to have stayed, but in all honesty, I felt that to be a rather boring choice. Or, well, it would’ve gotten boring at some point. I wish I would’ve kept some of the things there, but alas, such are memories.