Nothing prepared me for what was behind that door. I had imagined spectacle. What I found was candlelight, low music, and the peculiar calm of a beautiful home that let everyone feel at ease right away.
There were people I might have admired from across a room in ordinary life, but here you don't need introductions to get closer to each other. The usual questions never came. We spoke instead about the things we had nearly done, the dreams we might still choose, and what it costs to always hide away our desire.
I stayed in one room for almost three hours. I do not know their surnames, what they do, or whether we will ever meet again. That absence of detail is what made it honest. The Mansion gave us nothing to prove and nowhere else to be.