desert

Right in the middle of the dunes, without any foundation, stood a lonely wooden doorframe with a closed white door. There were no walls around it—you could simply walk around the door and see the same sand behind it.
But if you pull the handle and open it slightly, you won't see a desert inside the doorway. It's the darkness of your own apartment hallway, but somehow different. You'll clearly see the coat rack, the mirror, the light from the kitchen, and even hear your mother's distant, distorted voice. But as soon as you take a step forward, your foot hits an invisible wall—the door reveals your home but refuses to let you back in, leaving you locked out.

In the very center of the sandy plateau, you stumbled upon a circular stone well. Water is a matter of survival in this desert, so you rushed to it. But when you peered inside, you saw no water. The well was bottomless, and inside, instead of dampness and darkness, there was... veritable open space.
There, at a depth of several meters, tiny distant stars, galaxies, and nebulae slowly rotated. If you threw a handful of sand in there, the grains would flare up like tiny comets and silently fly away into the abyss. And from the depths of the well, the barely perceptible, quiet melody of your favorite song could be heard.

As the sun began to set, painting the desert crimson, the sand beneath your feet changed dramatically. It became transparent and smooth, turning into an endless sheet of thick glass.
Looking down at your feet, you'll freeze in amazement: deep beneath the glass, like in a giant aquarium, lies an entire sunken city, frozen in place with high-rises, neon signs, and empty streets. It's as if you're walking on the ceiling of a vast, upside-down world, once alive, but swallowed by the desert and silenced.

At some point, the horizon ahead darkened. You stumbled upon a remarkable sight: right above the sand, at your height, real cumulus clouds hung motionless in the air. They were as hard as cotton candy and completely cold. The desert here had frozen a patch of sky.
Stuck among these clouds are things: someone's lost bicycle, a school notebook with smudged ink, and an old cassette player. Touching these things brings back memories—bright, warm, smelling of mown grass and summer. This place collects everything people have ever lost or forgotten.

You'd been walking for several hours when you spotted a lone silhouette on the top of another dune. It turned out to be an old, peeling red telephone booth, half-buried in sand. There were no wires or poles around it. A heavy rotary phone hung inside.
As you approached, the dusty phone suddenly rang deafeningly, breaking the deathly silence of the desert. If you picked up the receiver, you'd hear not a voice, but the distant, barely audible sound of pouring city rain, car horns, and quiet whispers in an unfamiliar language that suddenly seemed very familiar. It was as if the desert was trying to transmit fragments of your past life to you.