2026-07-13 10:28 UTC
The (not real) bookstore in my childhood grocery store strip mall has become a mildly recurring dream location. It's helmed by a friendly 40-something man who always has something to recommend, and delving a little ways into it reveals it to be a (bigger on the inside, naturally) labyrinth of magical doodads and gewgaws. Warnings apply: don't leave the building while exploring (very important), be respectful of the exhibits, don't take things without paying. On this occasion I brought my father, who squeezed his way in through the narrow doorway and immediately set exploring.
I got some recommendations about current exhibits and things to check out and wandered into the back to follow my dad. Showed him a couple perennial exhibits, which were easily explicable by science. But before long he vanished and then returned and was horrified by me. I shouted for the shopkeeper and he came and it was clear something was not wrong with my dad. Something was wrong with me.
They performed some kind of exorcism and my dad fled. Then once I had recovered I went outside but my dad was very brusque towards me as he returned inside presumably to talk to the shopkeeper. A friend of mine stopped by to check on the clearly crying me.
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