The Seed Bank at the Edge of Light

A keycard's small click in the snow-dry silence, blue LEDs waking like winter moths. The corridor smells of metal and old apples, air held at the steady breath of a cave.

Drawers slide out with the sound of planets, each packet a tight paper moon. Names I can't pronounce lie quiet and exact, constellations of grain and husk.

Outside, the wind rakes the ice with a comb. Inside, I hear markets I once walked through— peaches sweating into noon, basil in bunches, someone laughing over a scale.

I take one seed into my glove's dark palm, a hard freckle, a patient note. Somewhere beyond the ridge, a thaw is learning how to say yes.