His favorite aunt loved antiques. All that dusty old crap given up by people who had had enough sense to get rid of it seemed to bring her immeasurable joy… He almost pitied her. But, “one man’s trash”, right? So he thought, this year, he’d put a little more effort than usual into choosing a birthday gift for her. Every year since he started making his own money, it’d been either a gift card, or one of those cheap department store beauty combo packs. With this year’s birthday steadily approaching, he hopped in his truck and drove a town over to Ray’s Antiques, deciding to scope the place out.

He walked into the store and a little bell jingled overhead, signaling his entrance. An elderly woman with sparse white hairs atop her head and deep, patterned forehead wrinkles gave him a warm smile and nod from behind the counter. He sent a small, disingenuous smile in the woman’s direction, thinking to himself, “that must be one of the antiques”.

He shook the thought away and started making his way through the store, perusing the strange objects and knick knacks that populated its shelves. There were all sorts of trinkets, kitschy stuff that he could see no use for. The smell of mahogany and some kind of essential oil or something permeated the air, making it harder than it already was for him to pick something out.

“Maybe I should have just gone with the gift card,” he thought to himself. “All this stuff seems so unnecessary and obsolete.” He walked on past the last shelf to the very back of the store, and there, a tiny, emerald colored chest on the floor immediately caught his eye. A strange feeling washed over him; eerie and yet enticing at the same time. He glanced back at the shopkeeper, who was deeply engrossed in some notebook.

Lowering his eyes towards the chest again as though drawn to it by some invisible magnetism, he reached a hand forward to open the single silver clasp that kept it shut. As his fingers latched around the clasp, the chest heaved and shuddered, dust blowing out in all directions from underneath its short, clawfoot legs. Not wanting to lose momentum, or maybe unable to, he popped the clasp open. He lifted the lid of the mysterious chest and warily but unwaveringly peeked inside. The moment he saw what the chest contained, he wished he’d never opened it…but it was too late now.

There, he himself stood. A tiny version of himself in an exact replica of the store, a tiny hand on an almost microscopic green chest. It was unmistakable; there he was, in his puffy blue jacket, his faded black jeans, one hand on the little green chest. He jumped back in shock, knocking into the shelf behind him. “What the hell am I looking at?” he wondered, incredulously. His eyes were bulging out of his sockets and so he rubbed at them to quell them back into place.

He glanced at the shopkeeper once more, who had not even looked up at the sound of impact his body had made as it flung into the furniture.

Feeling slightly nauseous, he wobbled forward again and peeked into the chest. It’s four walls and floor were mirrors, reflecting only each other. It was empty.

“I’m losing it,” he thought. “What is it with people and these essential oils?” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Opening them, he braved himself for another look into the chest, and his stomach dropped. There, both covered in and surrounded by various odds and ends, sat his aunt. Rocking away in a wooden rocking chair, tiny glasses resting on the bridge of her tiny nose. In her lap, she held a small, emerald green chest. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. She rocked steadily, the bottoms of the chair nudging piles of mugs with corny sayings, painted figures, ceramic teapots - you name it.

“Aunt Halle!! What are you doing in there?” he hissed.

“Oh hi honey!” his shrunken aunt sang out, beaming up at him. “Dear me, I never thought I’d see you here! Come on down here and take a look at all this stuff! I found a plate with these cute little pink cows on it that I know you’d just adore.”

“I-! I can’t get in there! I don’t even know how you got down there! And just a minute ago, I swear, I was looking at myself in the-…” he cut his sentence short. This was insane! He looked up from the chest and spun around himself wildly. He was suddenly face to face with the shopkeeper. She smiled, and for all the disdain he felt for the shop he couldn’t help but find comfort in interacting with someone his own size.

“I see you’ve found the treasured reflections chest. Some people walk right by it,” she said to him in a warm, dreamy voice.

“But…how? What is this?” he asked desperately, succumbing to mystery.

“It is whatever you are. However you see things, how things are, for you. It changes all the time. And just as some people walk right past it, others peek inside it and find nothing. How curious.”

“I just saw my aunt in there. She had hoarded so much crap… I guess… I guess that’s kind of where my head was at. I don’t know. She’s not really in there right? Am I in there?” he jabbered on worriedly.

The shopkeeper chuckled and patted his arm, ambling slowly back to her desk.

Just then, the shop shuddered as though an earthquake had come. He froze and gasped loudly as the top of the shop opened up and a big blue sky appeared before his eyes. Just as a massive hand crept in between the shop walls and headed straight for him, he woke up with a start in his own bed. Beads of sweat coated his forehead and it took him a few moments to orient himself to the familiarity of his bedroom. “That settles that,” he said aloud. “Definitely a gift card.”