The steps in the fog
It began one October morning, when the fog lay so thick that the road ahead of Lara seemed like a blank slate. She had gotten up early to jog along the river, but her steps led her down a side street she had never taken before. After a few minutes, she saw a staircase, steep, made of pale stone, in the middle of nowhere. No railing, no house to guide her up. She began to climb, driven by a feeling that was half curiosity, half memory.
The fog enveloped her, and with every step the air seemed to grow warmer. On the tenth step, she heard footsteps behind her. She turned around—no one. On the twentieth step, a smell of smoke emerged, like from a chimney long gone. On the thirtieth step, she heard her name, whispered in a voice she had known as a child.
At the top, she stood in a garden. The fog had disappeared. There, on a wooden bench, sat a woman whose face seemed strangely familiar—as if she'd seen it in dreams. "You're too early," the woman said gently. "But not too early to understand that some places are waiting for you. Even if you forget them."
The woman told Lara about three paths every person takes: the visible one, the dreamed one, and the one that exists only in the memories of others. "Today you've taken the third one," she said. "It will lead you back if you get lost. But you mustn't take it too often, or you'll stay here."
When Lara descended the stairs again, the fog was back, and the asphalt beneath her feet. The stairs—gone. But a leaf that smelled of wood smoke clung to her left shoe.
