The Anamnesis (Part 2) - The House That Waited

 

The Memory I Didn't Know I Had

It started with a dream...

I didn’t grow up in that house.
We moved in when I was already older, my memories rooted somewhere else entirely. And yet… the moment I stepped into the small, dim-lit room upstairs, I paused.

There was no reason for it.
Just four walls, an old wooden floor, and a single window that let the sunlight in like it had been waiting for me.

It smelled like pages left closed for too long. Like dust and rain and something sweet I couldn’t place. But remembered.
Not a memory with detail, but a feeling. Like I had stood in that exact spot before, in another time, in someone else’s life that might’ve also been mine.

I didn’t say anything about it.
But sometimes I’d sit on the floor there, in the quiet. And the house didn’t creak like the others did. It just… listened.

That room knew something.
And I didn’t want to ask too loudly, in case it stopped remembering for me.

.......................................................................................................................................................................

 

At first, I thought it was just a dream.

I was in the same room only this time, it was brighter. The walls weren’t empty anymore. There were faded photos, books stacked neatly in corners, and a chair that rocked gently on its own, like someone had just stood up.

There was music too soft, distant, like it came from another room, or maybe another time.
A voice whispered something I couldn’t catch. Every time I tried to focus, I woke up.

The strange part? The dream came back.
Exactly the same.
Same light. Same chair. Same almost-heard words.
Like a scene frozen in time, replaying until I noticed something.

And then months later it changed.

Just a flicker.
The chair wasn’t empty anymore.
A shadow, maybe. A figure. Not clear. But it was enough to make me sit up in the middle of the night, heart echoing like footsteps in that quiet room.

The dream became a thread I couldn’t stop pulling.
Something was there not to scare me, but to show me. Something I had forgotten. Or something I never knew… but was always meant to remember.

Each time it returned, it brought a new fragment.
A key on the floor.
A name half-written in dust.
The sound of someone softly laughing like they knew me.

It feels like I’m chasing something just out of reach.
A question without a name.
A moment stuck on repeat, waiting for the right version of me to finally see it through.

And I don’t know what it is yet.
But I think when I do… everything will make sense.

 

Sometimes, when the dream begins,
I’m not inside the room at all.
I’m standing outside just quietly… looking.

The house rests on a peaceful little street.

It always feels like early morning cool air, soft light, the world still half-asleep.
There’s a row of low brick fences, spaced just a meter apart, creating narrow walkways between each home. A delicate kind of order.

The neighbors' houses are close but silent.
Low lights. No movement.
And yet, not empty.
It doesn’t feel abandoned it feels paused.

The house I always look at... it feels like mine, but not mine.
It looks like something out of an old film or a dream of Kyoto dark wooden beams, paper windows glowing gently from inside, a porch that creaks even in silence.

I never walk straight in.
I stand there for a while first.
Breathing it in.

As if some part of me knows once I step through the door, the scene will start again.
The same as always.
Until it's not.

It’s never frightening.

Just quiet. Like it’s holding its breath waiting for me to remember the right detail, notice the thing I keep missing.

Sometimes it’s a smell.
Rain on stone. The sweet burn of incense. Dust and flowers.
Other times, it’s the faint sound of a bell, or wind chimes moving without wind.

And each time I enter, the scene resumes.
Not from the beginning not quite.
But just where it left off last time.

Always almost telling me something. And then… there are the stairs.

They’re always there whether I start inside or outside the house, at some point the dream leads me to them.

A narrow staircase.
Wooden. Worn.
It leads upward, toward a room I’ve never seen.
Or maybe I have but only once, in a version of the dream I forgot to wake up from.

But I never make it past the stairs. Because they’re always guarded. By dogs.

Not wild. Not angry. Just… there.

A pack of them, sitting. Lying. Watching.
Their eyes are calm, but unmoving. Like statues with breath.

I can’t tell if they’re protecting something or protecting me from what’s at the top.

Sometimes they bark.
Sometimes they don’t.
But I always stop at the third step.
Like I know I’m not ready.
Like the dream won’t let me through until I understand what waits above.

And maybe I don't want to yet. But they’re always there.

The dogs.
The stairs.
The silent agreement that this far is enough... for now.

And each time I wake up, that moment sticks with me more than anything else.

That pause.
That almost.
That feeling that what I’m looking for is just a few steps away…
if only I could pass.

 

For now, that’s where it always ends.
The stairs.
The dogs.
And me waiting.

I don’t know what’s at the top yet.

And maybe I’m not supposed to… not until the dream returns.

But when it does,
I’ll be here to write it down
to remember what wants to be remembered.

So if this story feels unfinished, that’s because it is.
It’s still happening quietly, somewhere in sleep.

And maybe, someday soon, we’ll both find out what’s waiting at the top of the stairs.....