Going Back

There wasn’t anything special about the two-story building sandwiched between a bank and a delicatessen on the eight hundred block of Congress. Nothing about its olive-green bricks or smog-stained windows suggested that anything out of the ordinary was taking place inside. There was no sign telling the passers-by what business took place there, nor flashing neon letters informing them that they were open. Nothing except a soiled door of cracking white paint and a brass knob worn to the primer by repeated turnings.

Claire visited the building weekly, usually on a Saturday morning when pedestrian traffic was light and the heat was bearable. It would consume most of her day, but she would return to whatever temperate climate she had left and feel refreshed and happy. It was such a perfect pick-me-up; a great way to relieve the stress of the previous week.

The first time she replayed, it was a memory of her fourth Christmas, a time when her parents were still together and the idea of happiness was still unquestioned. In the span of a couple months, she visited all of her Christmas memories, watched how they slowly deteriorated into nothing more than forced routine; ceremony that barely remembered when it was all real.