A few months ago I moved to a big city. I had been living in the suburbs for 20 years and now I have to face the concrete jungle, as they say.

No matter how hard I try I can't adapt. I feel like I don't fit in and the neighbors see me as the strange woman in apartment 22.

One afternoon I went out for a drive in my car. At a corner on 16th Street, I almost unintentionally put the Switchback and parked in front of the Chinese antique store.

I entered the store and the smell of freshly roasted coffee filled the air, so I felt comfortable and at ease. The elderly Chinese man who owned the store offered me a cup of coffee. It was very delicious, it was almost magical to see the store windows after the second sip of coffee, everything looked so beautiful and full of life that I wanted to take it all home.

I could see among the things the old man was selling a puzzle box, but when I took it he told me that maybe it was missing pieces so I returned it. I lost track of time wandering among his shelves that looked like a labyrinth.

As I was fiddling with a sheet and a special painting for Chinese typography, I realized that it had gotten dark and the night was advancing. So I approached the counter to tell the old man that I hadn't found anything to buy.

But the old man beat me to it and asked me to stay a few minutes looking after the store while he would go to the tool shed for a hammer to hang a picture on the wall. I agreed and stood looking at the things he had in a small display case in front of the counter.

A small light caught my attention and I had to remove some things like a candy vending machine and a chest with a gumball that the label said never lost its flavor.

Until I came to a little Chinese porcelain house. It was beautiful, every detail well defined, its windows, its roof and the entrance door. It had in the front a tiny lamppost. I loved it all, it was my dream house. I really wanted to buy it.

I was lost in imagining this little house adorning my bedside table, when the cellar door of the store opened and I jumped out of fright like a goose. The old man at that moment dropped everything he had brought from storage and the noise was very loud from the pieces of blacksmith he brought with him.

I told him I would take the little house. The old man looked a bit worried and took the house out of my hands telling me it was not for sale. I told him it didn't matter what the price was, I wanted that antique and I didn't care about anything that old man might say to me.

He looked at me with a nervous smile and told me that the little house had a curse on it and nothing could save me if I paid for it and took it home. I didn't care what I heard and placed it on the counter.

The old man checked it in and poured me another delicious cup of coffee. I drank that coffee as if it was the last thing I would ever drink in my life. I paid for the little house and the moment the bell of the old store cash register rang, everything went giant and I froze.

When I had a clear vision, I saw myself inside the little house. And the old man leaned out of the window and said to me in an echoing voice: -I warned you! the little house has a curse that you can never get out of - and he put the little house back on the shelf.