You push the button.

Ding.

The boomerang still isn’t back.

Let’s not worry about the boomerang.

There is now a display case in the room. It is full of plastic dinosaurs.

What fun!

Go for it! Go play with them!

You know you want to.

At this point you’ve done so many weird things here that you aren’t even phased by the idea of playing with a bunch of plastic dinosaurs.

You aren’t five, though, so you don’t “play”, you just rearrange them, based on type. There are several duplicates in there, which you compare and only leave in the best one.

Then you rearrange them again, trying to remember the names of all these dinosaurs. You used to know them all when you were about seven, but that was a long time ago. Your memory has had to scrap that knowledge to make room for more important things, like video game cheat codes.

You can't remember all the names, but it doesn't bother you. Dinosaur names are kind of silly and far too long, anyways.

You are not an infant. You do not play with toy dinosaurs.

But…

Something in you, some part of you left over from when you first saw Jurassic Park and became obsessed with dinosaurs, is still interested in them.

You wander over, quite casually, and take a look in the case. Your memory searches through old files and provides you with the names of some of the dinosaurs.

Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Stegosaurus.

Pterodactyl.

Velociraptor.

There’s one there, the black one, with the lump on its tail, what was its name? You know you know the name. It’s there, on the tip of your tongue.

It was something incredibly dumb…

You stand there for quite some time, staring at that particular dinosaur. You pick it up and turn it over a couple of times, thinking.

Wracking your brain.

You know the name.

Eventually you put it back down, turning away.

It’s going to bother yo- Ankylosaurus.

That’s what it was.

You smile, proud of yourself. I’m proud of you too. Well done.

You turn away from the display case, smiling to yourself.

That was fun.

DO YOU PRESS THE BUTTON? Yes No