There sits a box undisturbed

You wake up to find yourself in a hallway with no windows and no doors. Simply a corridor roughly the length of a football field, perhaps longer. Wake up. You think to yourself. A dream, surely it’s a dream. Nothing you do helps to shake you loose. Trapped in this hall, alone. Left to wander it’s length looking for anything that can help you escape.

Walk down the hallway and turn back when you reach the end. Repeat seven times. See the same things from slightly different angles. Take a step back. Access. This is not the first time you have been here. What kind of hall has no doors?

In the middle of the hall is a small table, and upon that table there sits a box undisturbed. Was this here before? It must have been, but how could you have not noticed it before? Examine the box. It’s gilded, though the leaf is flaking. It’s clearly old, from an era many years removed from the hallway you’ve found yourself in. The latch is slightly sprung, it’s begging you to open it. Just a crack. Just a quick little peek. Your life is not a Greek myth. There’s nothing to fear here.

The lid pops open a bit as you ply the latch the rest of the way. The contents of the chest practically bursting out. There are all manner of things you had forgotten inside. A pair of shoelaces. Some cards with smudged ink. Black and white photos. Faces with no names, and the opposite. Memories from your childhood come rushing back.

Around you the seasons change. Rain rushes in and subsides in quick succession. The world descends into chaos but you are teleported a million miles away. You remember now. You remember everything.