Memory Lane

The Midnight Article "MEMORY LANE - MORE THAN MERE NOSTALGIA?" was written by u/pumpkin_mocha_ and posted to r/MidnightPaper.

The text of the Article was as follows:

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MEMORY LANE - MORE THAN MERE NOSTALGIA? Reports of strange occurrences in a seemingly regular neighborhood started popping up within the past month. At first, people posted about their experiences as something they dreamed about, or as a what-if scenario. As these types of posts became more common, the people involved began to ask, "Did this really happen to you?" to which the response gradually became, "Yes."

The first-hand account we present to you here comes from a young man, who remains anonymous. "I wasn't really aware of anything strange happening, at first," he recalls. "I was visiting my childhood home. I don't have many memories of that place - my parents split, and my mom got custody of me and moved... There wasn't a big fight - it was acceptance on both sides - and my dad stayed in contact, but I've never visited until now."

The young man says that, although he had no memories of the house, it felt incredibly nostalgic. His dad left to go to work, and so the young man decided to leave the house and go for a walk.

"It got pretty stifling," the young man admits. "Most of it is different from the pictures of when I was really little, but I could see places here and there left over from when there was supposed to be a whole family. The dining table, for example, is too big. I felt bad, thinking of my dad eating at that table all alone."

The young man says that he's planned to walk the whole street, just to see what it's been like for his dad. Apparently, when the parents were still together, he would be carried by his dad down the street.

"I think my dad wanted to do that again," the young man says. "But neither of us are really comfortable with each other yet... The long silence would be torture, I think."

The young man describes his walk as ordinary. "I wasn't really paying attention to my surroundings. And anyway, I didn't know the area well enough to tell if anything was different."

At then he hesitates. "I got back to the house," he says, slowly. It seems to be hard for him, but then, most people who claim to have experienced this phenomenon have difficulty sharing what occurred.

"It was - nicer, somehow. The grass was greener." He looks embarrassed at this, but continues, "When I opened the door, it was different. Honestly, I thought I was in the wrong house."

He says that the house's interior resembled that of his childhood. When he left the house, the rest of the neighborhood seemed normal. He had a conversation with a woman next door, an old woman who introduced herself as his neighbor and seemed kind.

"I went walking again. I checked my phone, and went around the entire neighborhood again. Nothing out of the ordinary. And when I got back to the house..."

Apparently, things went back to normal when he returned. Later that evening, he casually asked his dad about the woman he'd spoken to.

His dad told him that the woman was someone who'd looked after him when he and his mother still lived there. Additionally, that woman has passed away some years ago.

The young man hadn't intended on sharing his story, but after seeing other, similar accounts, he came forward with his own.

Memory Lane is an occurrence that happens in nostalgic places - whether one has conscious memories or not doesn't seem to matter. These reports vary from light-hearted conversations with people who no longer exist to reliving entire events in the past.

Although the times and places vary, one thing remains - we have the sources to allow you to experience or avoid this phenomenon for yourself! Whichever path you decide to take for yourself, the following address will cause you to take a trip into Memory Lane: XX-XXXX St.

Description:

"Memory Lane" is a Location-Type Oddity in the shape of a regular street. It has the anomalous quality of transporting whoever walks down it to a version of their childhood home that is exactly as they remember it. This street also has the anomalous quality of being able to change location so that its address matches that of the recipients of the Midnight Paper's childhood home.

It is unknown at this time how exactly the street is able to know both the location and the exact look and feel of the childhood home of those who walk it. Whether the street itself is sentient, or whether there is an unseen entity creating the anomalous effect is also unknown. Furthermore, whether the "trip" those who walk down it experience is a real trip into the past or simply an illusion, is also not known.

The street's motives are also a mystery. It doesn't seem to have harmed anyone who experienced "a trip down Memory Lane" other than perhaps inflicting some confusion and mild panic. It may, however, simply create these "trips" to give whoever walks down it a final glimpse of their childhood home how they remember it.

The man quoted in the article stated that he was able to talk to an old woman who was a neighbor of his when he was a boy. It is not known whether this woman was real and simply existing in the past, or if the street conjured her from the man's memories of her.