Thinking and Dreaming

I look around my room and find a small envelope tucked under the corner of my window sill, the paper a soft cream color with edges just slightly frayed. No stamp and no name. Simply just my initials written in a careful hand. Inside was a tiny key, shaped like a crescent moon, and a note that read:

"Tonight, the world you see will not be the one you wake up to. Keep the key close."

At first, I laughed at the oddness of it. A key? To what? But when night came, I noticed the clock on my dresser had no hands. The numbers were still there, but they shimmered as if they weren’t fixed in place. I got curious and held the crescent key above it, and the clock face split open like a door.

Stepping through, I found myself in the same room I once was. It was my bedroom, all the same except that everything was only slightly shifted, making things feel rather unfamiliar. The light from the window had a honeyed glow, and shadows hummed softly, like they remembered stories I'd never told anyone before. On the desk, a small stack of letters awaited me, each addressed to “The You Who Dreams Too Much.”

I didn’t know who had written them. Maybe I had. Maybe they had written themselves. But opening the first letter, I felt a gentle warmth spread in my chest.. a whisper that even when the world felt heavy, there were places, even tiny ones, where wonder was waiting for me.