There was a bench.

Only a bench.

Old cedar wood, polished smooth by countless years of rain.

It stood in the middle of an endless mirror.

Not water.

Not glass.

Something between the two.

Every raindrop that landed upon it spread into circles of tiny stars instead of ripples.

Above, the night sky stretched forever.

Below, another identical sky waited beneath their feet.

No horizon separated them.

Only mist.

Only silence.

And rain.

...

A girl carrying a transparent umbrella walked across the mirrored ground.

The umbrella never became wet.

Raindrops stopped just before touching it, hanging in the air like tiny crystal beads.

They slowly drifted around its surface before quietly continuing downward.

She seemed unsurprised.

As though umbrellas had always worked that way here.

Someone was already sitting on the bench.

A young man wearing a long charcoal coat.

He wasn't watching the stars.

He was watching their reflections beneath his feet.

She stopped beside him.

"Is this seat taken?"

"I don't know."

She smiled.

"I'll sit until someone says otherwise."

She folded the umbrella.

The floating droplets did not fall.

They remained suspended above the bench, becoming a little constellation all their own.

For a while...

Neither of them spoke.

The rain did enough talking.

It sounded strangely distant.

As though it were falling somewhere several memories away.

Eventually she looked upward.

"I've been walking for days."

"Did you arrive?"

"I think I kept passing it."

He nodded thoughtfully.

"That happens here."

Silence returned.

Far away—

if distance still existed—

an old streetlamp quietly appeared.

No road.

No path.

Only the lamp.

Its warm light reached them despite being impossibly far away.

Moments later...

another lamp appeared.

Then another.

None of them connected.

Each stood alone in the endless mirror.

Like forgotten punctuation marks at the end of invisible sentences.

"I wonder who lights them."

"No one."

"They're already lit?"

"I think..."

He looked toward the rain.

"...they simply remember."

The rain became softer.

Instead of falling straight down, every drop slowly drifted sideways.

The stars followed.

The entire sky quietly flowed like a river above them.

The constellations dissolved into glowing fish.

Thousands of them.

Swimming through the heavens.

Their reflections swam beneath the bench in the opposite direction.

The girl laughed quietly.

"I don't know which sky is real anymore."

He answered without looking up.

"Perhaps they're both reflections."

"Of what?"

He thought for a long time.

Finally...

"Whoever is dreaming."

She rested her chin upon her knees.

"I hope they keep sleeping."

A warm breeze wandered through the endless space.

It carried hundreds of white feathers.

None belonged to birds.

Each feather gently landed upon the mirrored ground...

...and quietly became little wooden doors.

They stood no higher than a teacup.

One by one, they opened.

Soft golden light spilled out.

Tiny staircases unfolded from each doorway, climbing upward into the rain before disappearing.

Neither of them moved.

Some places felt happier when simply observed.

The girl noticed something near her shoes.

A puddle.

Except...

the puddle reflected morning instead of night.

Blue sky.

White clouds.

A single butterfly.

She reached toward it.

Her fingers entered cool sunlight.

She quickly pulled them back.

Morning clung to her fingertips for a moment before dissolving into tiny glowing petals.

"I almost fell into tomorrow."

The young man smiled.

"I almost did once."

"What happened?"

"I arrived before yesterday."

She waited.

He never explained.

Somehow...

that made perfect sense.

The rain slowly became brighter.

Each drop now contained a tiny moon.

Millions of little moons drifted around them.

The transparent umbrella quietly lifted from the bench by itself.

It floated overhead.

Not protecting them from the rain...

Protecting the rain from the sky.

The girl noticed.

"I think your umbrella is upside down."

"It isn't mine."

"Whose is it?"

Neither answered.

The umbrella continued floating peacefully among the stars.

Eventually...

the bench began drifting.

Not across the mirror.

Across the night itself.

The stars beneath them slowly slid away.

The lamps disappeared one after another into the mist.

The tiny doors gently closed.

Rain continued falling without ever reaching an end.

After what may have been hours...

Or perhaps only one very patient minute...

the girl spoke again.

"If this place vanished tomorrow..."

"...would anyone miss it?"

The young man watched another circle of stars bloom where a raindrop touched the mirror.

"I think places like this don't disappear."

"They don't?"

"No."

He smiled softly.

"They wait."

The rain grew quieter still.

Until every drop sounded like someone whispering,

"Take your time."

The bench continued drifting through the impossible night.

With nowhere to arrive.

Nowhere to leave.

And for the first time in forever...

that felt exactly like the right destination.