The Sale, A Locked Door & An Itch

An ordinary day in the city.

Dan Stout @boxyourbuddy
2 min readAug 15, 2023

There was an exciting sale at Macy’s that I really wanted to attend. This sale and a store credit of $1.64 made for an acceptable reason for me to leave the comfortable surroundings I have created in my apartment.

A very rare occasion.

I changed into something other than my pajamas, and made sure that I unplugged all the appliances before leaving.

I locked my door and strolled towards the stairs, but the door to the stairs was locked.

Weird.

I take the six steps over to the elevator and just as I was about to press the down button, it dinged.

Ding.

At the very same time I saw two rabbits, one white, one black. They ran from the stairwell door that was just locked followed by dogs of the same color.

This gave me an itchy feeling all over my body between my skin and my bones. In places you cannot scratch. It was an odd feeling I had not felt in some time.

I woke up inside my apartment. Laying face up in the doorway between the bedroom and hall. There was music playing. The kind you hear when you get a massage or want to meditate. I could smell toast and warm peanut butter.

Then I woke up for real, on the floor, next to the elevator with a dog licking the bottom of my shoe. A different dog than before.

I looked around for rabbits to find none.

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Dan Stout @boxyourbuddy

Quiet observer. I write original stories about whatever spark my brain created and feed it to the few. I have never used AI in my writing, but photos, yes.