Atrium with Fernlight

At the mall where escalators once carried Saturdays, glass ribs hold rain like a cathedral of receipts, and in each shuttered storefront, soil has learned the alphabet of light spilling through broken skylights.

Vines comb the mannequins into green-braided saints; moss buttons the jackets no one came back for. A koi pond widens in the old food court, coin-bright bodies turning where fries once hissed.

At noon, wind rehearses the names of extinct brands, soft as a clerk folding tissue around air. Bees broker treaties between orchids and rust, their gold knees dusted with a future nobody sold.

I stand in the atrium, palms open as planters, hearing roots tap code through tile and concrete. What failed here was only the price of things; what stays is water, leaf, and the patience to begin.