If this reaches you, it means the connection works. That someone can still hear me. Are you getting this?
It all started when I moved to Brooklyn 17 years ago. Fresh start. Big dreams. That’s where I found it. Out of all the side streets in all the boroughs, there it stood — four floors of brick and shadow, with bold serif letters carved into stone across the roofline:
THE BERBERICH
That’s my name. But no one in my family has ties to New York, and I certainly don’t come from building-naming stock. It felt like something I wasn’t supposed to know about. I scoured the internet for details. Found nothing.
Years passed, I moved out of the neighborhood, and life went on. That building settled into the recesses of my memory.
Until recently.
14 DAYS AGO
I’ve had the same dream every night for two weeks.
I’m hovering above my old Bed-Stuy block — but it’s not how I left it. The cracked sidewalks shimmer with electric violet. The brownstones glow with deep indigo and gold. It’s like the whole neighborhood’s been dipped in magic hour and set to loop.
Then I see it: The Berberich.
But now it’s impossibly tall, a glowing spire pulsing with green and magenta light, casting long shadows that stretch over the East River and curl around Manhattan. As I float closer, I feel it — this strange mix of terror and warmth, like I’m going up the first hill of a roller coaster.
Every night, I wake up shaking, breathless… and still buzzing with something I can’t name.
It was a Tuesday, I think, when the letter arrived. No return address, only “BRBRCK” scrawled across the envelope. Cute. I opened it and immediately let out a yelp — inside: a photograph of The Berberich. No note. Just the photo — and in the window of the top floor, a blurry silhouette that looks a lot like me.
DAY 1
I got on the B38 bus without a plan.
On the way, I kept asking myself: What am I doing? What do I think I’ll find? But something was pulling me. Not nostalgia — gravity. Like I was being summoned.
As the bus neared Dekalb and Nostrand, my stomach dropped. What if it wasn’t there anymore? What if the whole thing was just a trick memory playing dress-up?
It was there, all right. And so was that sick sweet feeling from my dreams.
I walked up to the building, every hair on my body standing straight up, every nerve ending firing. Okay, so…what now? I stood in front of the edifice, lost in thought. Truly, what did I think was going to—
The buzzer rang, and the door to The Berberich gently swung open.
DAY 3(??)
I don’t know how much time has passed.
As soon as I stepped through the door, everything shifted. I was lost in a dream world, blinded by an explosion of vibrant color as a thousand voices swirled, harmonious and chaotic all at once. My mind flooded — every memory I’d buried, shelved, or misremembered came screaming back at once — my childhood sticker collection, my first kiss…my Nana’s hallway? Through it all, a low steady hum from within me seemed to pull me forward.
Why the hell does this all feel so familiar?
I walked for what felt like hours. Or years. The hallway darkened, then brightened, narrowed and expanded, then turned violet, then black.
I heard the buzzer again. Or maybe it never stopped?
In front of me, a door gently swung open.
Will you come with me?
