It began with the baker on 4th Street. He didn't disappear; he simply ceased to be a 'baker' and started manifesting as a series of warm, yeasty sighs. The town council tried to revoke his license, but before the gavel could strike, the Town Hall itself folded into a non-Euclidean origami crane and drifted into the stratosphere.
My own front door is now a velvet curtain that demands I recite a dream from 1997 to pass. It is a grueling commute. By the third day, the subway system integrated with the subconscious. You don't pay with money; you trade a memory you’re ready to lose. I saw a man exchange his first bike ride for a seat on a train that only exists in the hypothetical.
The pigeons have organized into a grandfather clock. Every wingbeat dilates time by exactly three seconds. I have been home for five minutes, but my coffee has aged six years. If you feel the walls thinning, do not look for an exit. There is no return. There is only the hum. Tonight, the moon is a jellyfish. Don't look up.