That time someone else took over my home

When it happened I was walking back from lunch.

I was thinking about what I should write that day after work. A few thoughts were spinning my mind, as I’ve been taking a break from even looking at my book’s rough draft. I just wanted to work on anything else as a palette cleanser.

I unlocked the door to my condo building, checked my mail, and then got on the elevator. I hit the button for my floor.

Still lost in thought, I started thinking about a story. What if I came home and found out someone had taken over my home? As in, I show up, the locks have changed, someone is living where I’m supposed to live. They’ve completely decorated, all of my possessions, and my cat, they’re all gone.

And this switch happened while I was out to lunch.

While I was thinking this, I got off the elevator and walked down the corridor leading to my door. As I turned the corner toward my place, I froze.

In front of my door was a pair of rain boots. When I left, I certainly didn’t have rain boots in front of my door. My mind started racing. Did some random person come to fix something in my place and I forgot about it?

No way. That most certainly did not happen. My heart started racing, because I had just been thinking about this crazy scenario, where someone moved into my place while I was at lunch, and now it was fucking happening.

I walked toward the door, freaking out, going through all the obvious of how this could’ve occurred:

• This was an amazing prank.
• I accidentally entered an alternate timeline while on the elevator.

Those were my only options. Both seemed wildly reasonable as my fear began growing stronger and stronger.

As I got closer to the door, I stared at the rain boots. Then I stared up at the door. Then I wanted to slap myself in the face.

This was the unit below mine, in a building where each floor is identical. I got off the elevator a floor early, on autopilot. And while stuck in my brain imagining this exact scenario, I freaked myself out and thought it was happening.

I turned around and pretended like I didn’t just do this as I walked toward the stairs—and hoped the woman walking down the hall didn’t wonder why I stopped, frozen, staring at some random door before turning tail and leaving. I walked to the fourth floor, where my unit most definitely was.

No rain boots this time.