You’re not sure why you’re here. There has to be a reason, doesn’t there? People don’t just show up places, especially not sparse, quaint little studies with a single desk and tinted windows.

    You look around. It’s nice, you suppose, in a quiet sort of way. There’s a box on the desk, about the size of a bread loaf—was it there a moment ago? Thick oak wood with a polished sheen, silver latch that beckons to be opened. You obey, of course, flicking up the metal and lifting the lid.

    Nestled inside, amidst the crushed-velvet interior, your fingers brush up against another box. It looks to be identical, save for being a fraction of the size. You take it out, open it, and feel a sting of déjà vu as more polished wood comes into sight.

    Your mind’s eye flashes to those clusters of Matryoshka dolls you played with as a child, stacking and untwisting till the set lined up before you: sweet little family; bright, painted cheeks a vivid rose-red. Content in their pale stoicness.

     As you make to combine the boxes—re-nest the dolls, as it were—you are impeded by two harsh facts. One: The size difference between the pair has shrunk dramatically—in fact, it's vanished.

    And, two: Neither box is empty.

    With trembling fingers, you lift the familiar, newly materialized contents to eye-level. 

    For the life of you, you can’t see the box grow as you move it upwards—well, no more than what would be expected from that perspective change. But back in place upon the desk’s surface, all the cases are indistinguishable.

    You allow yourself a moment of unease before you investigate. You repeat your previous motions: again, and again, and again, and again, taking each box out and discarding it on the table before you turn to the next closed lid. The cycle seems unending, impossible, boundless.

    Where they once were methodical, your movements grow erratic—you switch from one case to another, tossing aside those just opened, then returning to them when one rabbit-hole leads nowhere and you become convinced the previous will yield better results.

    At this point, it’d be impossible to tell which box was the first, or which the most recent, or whether if you open any one it’ll continue towards infinity, up and away from any sane numerical value. You’re no longer aware of the walls around you—at some point, naturally, the room must be full up—but the piles just keep getting higher, stacks of well-crafted boxes that seem to refuse all laws of physics and nature you’ve ever been taught sprawling out across the slatted floorboards. 

    And yet—you keep going. You’re driven by something—what?

    You’re searching, you know that you’re searching—but what for? Some treasure, or means of escape? Some key to unlock whatever door you must have opened to gain entry? Common sense—well, “common sense” was dashed after box number two—but what is left of your sanity is screaming that it’s hopeless to keep searching; look where it got you; what could you possibly find; and how long have you been here, anyway? What more could there be than this ever-expanding hellscape of lids and latches and endless lost causes? But you know, somehow, that if you open just one more box—no, not that one—maybe this one—you’ll find what you’ve been looking for, what that pull at your fingertips is bringing you closer and closer and closer to.

    You’re not sure why you’re here.

    But as the paradoxes scatter at your feet, and your hands shake with exhaustion from their fruitless repetitions, you’re starting to forget being anywhere else.