The Visitation

I’m moving into a new apartment.

There are people here helping me. Family, I think. I can feel them more than I can see them. I know my mother is here even if she doesn’t fully appear. Just a presence. Just a knowing.

The apartment feels unfinished, like it hasn’t decided what it is yet. I’m moving furniture around, trying to make things fit. Trying to make it make sense.

There’s a rug on the floor. Threadbare. Worn down to almost nothing. It’s in pieces, like it’s been taken apart and put back together too many times. Someone tells me I should replace it. I don’t. It feels important that it stays.

I keep rearranging things. That’s when I realize the apartment is bigger than I thought.

There are rooms I didn’t see before. A kitchen. Another bathroom. Then another. Three in total. The toilets are old, almost antique. One sits by itself in a corner, exposed, like it was placed there and forgotten. I try to move a desk into the space, but the toilet blocks it. I stop.

Something feels wrong so I keep exploring.

I see a door I hadn’t noticed before. It’s split in two, the top half opening separately from the bottom, like something meant to keep only part of you out.

I open it.

There’s a kitchen inside. Normal enough. Tile. A stove. But when I turn the corner, the space shifts. It stretches further than it should.

And then it becomes something else. A hallway. Long. Narrow. It keeps going. A bathroom too?

The walls are covered in photographs. Old ones. Black and white. Sepia. Faces from another time. It feels less like a bathroom and more like an altar. Like a place meant for remembering.

I walk further in.

At the end, everything gathers. Photos. Objects. Small things that feel like they’ve been kept on purpose. Preserved.

There’s a man in the images.

Over and over again.

He looks like my father.

Not exactly. But enough that I can’t ignore it.

I stand there trying to understand how that could be possible. The photos are too old. Late 1800s, early 1900s. Long before him. And still.

I know.

Or I think I know.

Or I don’t want to know.

To the right, there’s a bathtub. Massive. Deep enough to step down into. It feels less like a bath and more like something ceremonial. Something you enter.

There’s no mirror anywhere.

That detail sticks with me.

I leave the room.

Back in the main space, I grab family by the hand. I need them to see this. I need someone else to confirm I’m not imagining it.

We go back.

But now the hallway is full.

Women line the space. Older women. Dressed like they’re on their way somewhere important. Church, maybe. Or something older than that. They stand patiently, like they’ve been waiting.

There are so many of them.

We try to move through, excusing ourselves, pushing gently past. I keep saying we’re not here to use the bathroom. I just need to show her something.

The closer we get, the tighter the space becomes.

More bodies. More heat. More pressure.

We reach the front.

I show her the images.

She looks. Tilts her head.

“It kind of looks like him,” she says. “But I don’t know.”

I do.

Or I think I do.

Something in me goes cold.

I say it out loud this time. I can’t just move this stuff. I can’t throw it away. Something about this place isn’t right.

I leave again.

The dream shifts.

I’m back in the apartment with someone else now. I show her everything. Tell her not to touch anything. I can feel it more clearly now. This isn’t just a space. It’s holding something.

I’m still planning to move in.

Even now.

That feels important.

The dream shift.

There’s a woman in the apartment. She moves like she belongs there. Like she’s always been there. She knows the space in a way I don’t.

I’m holding something I’ve taken from the room. I’m thinking about putting it outside. Letting someone else take it.

She looks at me.

“Sit it out where?” she asks.

“Outside,” I say.

“For what?”

“So someone can take it.”

She pauses.

“No one’s going to take that.”

Something about the way she says it lands.

I hesitate.

I shouldn’t move anything. I shouldn’t spread whatever this is.

She reaches behind something and pulls out a bottle. Says she’s going to have a drink.

I recognize it.

Someone else had brought it earlier. Offered it to me. Told me I should have some.

I didn’t.

She pours it anyway.

And then it ended in darkness.

I wait a beat as the sound of my heart pounding fills my ears and echoes around me in the dark.

I open my eyes as my bedroom comes into focus, welcoming me back to the waking world.