One Entry Per Person
This is what you find when you return:
34 leaflets and newsletters, plain or glossy paper with no moon runes, ink-chants or scarenocks. None of them folds itself into an origami puffin or a kangaroo when prodded with a finger.
1 post-it note on the door, about an electricity blackout. Signed "Mrs. Trelawney, your trusted neighbor," dated two days after you entered the Realm. Text already a little faded, in English. Only a touch of perfume, no cinnamon, cockatrice-feather, or wild-dryad smell.
1 rug, oval, orange-white. The colors stable, not moving around or floating five centimeters above the floor. There are no whispers from the fabric, even if you put your ear very close.
121 personal emails. None of them starts with "Greetings, shimmering friend."
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838 emails, belonging to the SPAM category. None of them call you "Gentle being" or "The one gifted with a passage-key to the realm."
13 cobwebs, no smell, no coruscation, no visible star-patterns.
5 spiders, usual size, speechless and rather dumb. No apparent stargazing during periods of clear night sky.
1 cup, with a silver line around the top, no quickrust. It does not warm up when asked to do so. A sign that says THE BEST MUG 4EVER in tacky letters, but you can see the bottom and the handle does not curl up your forearm, softly promising to stay forever.
2 apples, disappointingly tasting like apples.
10-12 fruit flies, usual size, speechless, simply hovering about. They do not dance in the air, show simple icons, or connect into a little arrow.
1 piece of bark of a giant spreentruce, found in your pocket after searching the whole flat for any other signs. There are a few lines of text, written in charcoal: "Follow the flies in, unfollow them back. Rugs tell the truth, cups tell lies. Keys can only be turned once."
1 cardboard box, large, labeled FRAGILE and DO NOT TILT. No matter how many ways you position it or fold yourself inside, you still come out in the same place, a small kitchen with frayed orange curtains and a musty smell, here.
The End
This story was first published on Thursday, March 17th, 2016
We hope you're enjoying
One Entry Per Person by
Tom Hadrava.
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