A weight—not just physical, but emotional. The moment my fingers closed around it, something shifted. Memories surfaced that didn’t feel like memories at all—fragments, sensations, impressions that didn’t belong to me, yet felt disturbingly close. My chest tightened. My head buzzed, as though something had been stirred awake.
I couldn’t tell whether I was remembering something real or imagining what I had always feared.
I looked at my mother, and she looked back at me without speaking. We both understood that whatever this object was, it wasn’t just something my father owned. It was something he carried with him—something that shaped him, drained him, maybe even defined him.
The drawer was closed again.
The box was locked.
But the fear didn’t go back where it came from.
Because once something hidden is seen, it can never truly be unseen.
